How do I disable the "Artificial Intelligence (AI) Host [etc]" feature?

Anonymous

We have started getting complaints from our customers over this "feature" as it appears to be quite the resource hog, and of course they are blaming our add-ins.

Killing the ai.exe process appears to have no ill effect on the usability of Office programs such as Word, Outlook or Excel.

So I need to know how we can disable it. I'd prefer to give an instruction to our users on how they can switch off a feature they do not want, they feel they do not need, and that causes their old PCs to start sounding like a Harrier Jet taking off.

Thank you

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Anonymous

This seems to work. There are all sorts of solutions put out there that involve things like editing the Registry. Here's a much easier fix that seems to have worked for me (and this is from The Geek Page https://thegeekpage.com/how-to-disable-the-artificial-intelligence-ai-host-feature/).

First, the obvious: delete the AI executables from the OFFICE folder:
ai.exe

ai.exe
aitrx.dll

Second - this is incredibly easy. Deleting the executables does not completely work because Office automatically updates itself with new copies of those files.

Since the AI Host runs when you use an Office app:
Disable the Office app updates.

To do this, open any Office application, like Word.

– Click the “File” menu and then the “Account” menu item - this may be under the "More..." menu item, in which case click "More..." and then click "Account"

– There, click on “Update Options”, which brings up a popup menu - on the popup menu, set that to “Disable Updates” to disable Office updates for all Office apps

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Anonymous

2023-08-24T13:46:35+00:00

What a Cluster **** MS!!!
So many bugs in Windows and Office and you choose to make the whole thing even worse, with a feature literally NO ONE asked for.

I have user PCs grinding and pointless processes running, all so MS can use the acronym "AI" in Office!
Damn, I wish there were a viable alternative.
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Anonymous

2023-07-24T13:29:22+00:00

Quite obvious NOBODY wants or needs this ill concieved process to create major problems. so GET RID OF IT. permantely
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Anonymous

2023-07-18T23:58:17+00:00

Sorry I have been up to my nose in issues lately. I'll get clear of this soon hopefully... I want to read and contribute here, just getting clobbered right now... keep after it!
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Anonymous

2023-07-18T10:17:56+00:00

I also want to express my desire to be able to at least temporarily disable any AI programs within Microsoft Office or any Microsoft app. Working with long document and Zotero add-ins it is so slow, I can't work properly. Having a very near deadline to respect I don't want to take the risk to tweak it by removing a file on my own...

The easiest way would be to include these paths in your antivirus to stop/block execution of ai.exe

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\VFS\ProgramFilesCommonX64\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE16\ai.exe

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\VFS\ProgramFilesCommonX86\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE16\ai.exe

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\VFS\ProgramFilesCommonX64\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE16\ai.exe

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\VFS\ProgramFilesCommonX86\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE16\ai.exe

By adding these to your AV you should be able to choose to turn this feature on or off as you might want.

Nor does it rely on manually or automatically deleting the files, which will return at the next MS Update.
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