Apple Intelligence features arrived in iOS 18 with big promises, but their execution has been a bit of a mixed bag. Add to that a common feeling of distrust towards AI, and you’d be forgiven for not being all-in on these features. But disabling Apple Intelligence entirely means losing some genuinely useful tools alongside the frustrating ones.
Fortunately, you can selectively hide many of these feature, including the most controversial ones, leaving just the stuff you actually want to use. Apple doesn’t exactly make these settings easy to find, though, which is where we come in. Here’s how to do it.
Recap: disable everything
Turning off Apple Intelligence entirely is easy. Just open Settings, then go to Apple Intelligence & Siri, and toggle Apple Intelligence off. If you don’t want any of Apple’s new-fangled AI stuff, that’s all you need to do. But if you’d rather be more selective, keep this switch on and keep reading…
Use the Screen Time hack
Three of Apple’s biggest and most prevalent AI features don’t seem to have an off switch in the usual places. But rest assured that Writing Tools, Image Creation, and the ChatGPT extension can all be blocked if you know where to look – tucked away in Screen Time.
Open Settings and navigate to Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions and ensure the toggle is enabled. Next, tap Intelligence & Siri, where you can individually set Don’t Allow to whichever tools you don’t want to see anymore.
Once disabled, you won’t see related prompts anymore, and the relevant buttons will be hidden from the iOS keyboard. If you try to manually access them via Siri or the Image Playground app, you’ll be told these tools are unavailable.
No more notification summaries
Notification Summaries have been particularly controversial, causing frustration by occasionally generating misleading news alerts. If you’d rather view notifications in their original, unaltered form, head to Settings > Notifications and toggle off Summarize Notifications to remove this feature entirely.