Google finally admits its AI search in Photos was a mess, adds a kill switch

Google has spent the last few years in a constant state of AI escalation—rolling out new Gemini models and cramming them into every product it can. For users, this has been less “exciting” and more “please stop breaking things that worked fine.”

The AI fever shows no sign of breaking, but there’s one small exception: Google Photos. After waffling for months on how to handle the backlash against its Gemini-powered search, Google has finally relented. They’re adding a simple toggle to let you go back to the classic, non-AI search experience.

Shimrit Ben-Yair, head of Google Photos, acknowledged the complaints publicly. The rollout of Ask Photos hasn’t been smooth, and they’ve heard the feedback. So now, instead of forcing everyone into the new system, they’re giving users a way out.

If you weren’t around for the early days of Google Photos, it’s hard to appreciate just how good the original search was. Before AI became a buzzword, Google Photos already let you search for “dog in a park” or “birthday cake” and actually find relevant photos. That was the real revolution—using machine learning to understand image content without the hype.

Then came the generative AI era, and Google decided that wasn’t enough. They had to “improve” it with Gemini. The result? A search experience that’s slower, less accurate, and often returns hallucinated results. I’ve personally had it show me photos that don’t exist or describe scenes that never happened. That’s not an improvement—that’s a regression.

The fact that Google is backing down here is telling. They rarely admit when a feature flops, especially one tied to their flagship AI model. But the complaints were loud enough, and the user exodus was probably visible in the metrics. Adding a toggle is the least they could do.

Will this toggle stay permanent? History suggests Google might quietly remove it after a few updates, claiming “most users prefer the new experience.” But for now, if you’ve been frustrated by Ask Photos, relief is on the way. Classic search wasn’t broken. Google just couldn’t leave it alone.