I recently watched the Google I/O conference that took place a few days ago (link to recap video here)

There was a common trend of "AI in Everything", unsurprisingly.

New Products and Innovation

Many of the products are seemingly good, and genuinely innovative.

Some particularly interesting new products were:

  • Gemini Omni - An new model that helps create and edit video/image/text assets. The video to video editing is particularly impressive (Demonstrations shown here)
  • Gemini Spark - Seems to be an OpenClaw-like agent, that integrates with many of the apps in the Google ecosystem
  • Audio Glasses - Like Google's version of Meta glasses
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (model card here): Seems to be a pretty good model, at a decent price point
  • Agent E-commerce - a new Universal Commerce Protocol, Agent Payments Protocol, and a "Universal Cart" feature - which might help users make better and faster purchasing decisions with the use of Agents

I understand that many of these products are not for everybody. But they are new products that didn't exist before. If they were released pre-AI hype phase, any of these products would have been seen as remarkable

Negative Public Sentiment

What was particularly interesting was how much negative sentiment appeared in the comments section of the recap video linked above. At the time of writing this, there were only ~11K likes on a video that had 17.5M views.

Scrolling through the comments, I noticed these reoccurring sentiments:

  • Users asking for an option to disable AI features
  • Users de-googling, switching to other products (GrapheneOS, Brave browser, etc)
  • Google claiming to have billions of AI users, only because we have no ability to turn these features off
  • Referencing their previous moto "Don't be evil" (as if they have now become evil)
  • Clankers IO / Gemini IO / everything AI - as if everything that was discussed at the conference was AI related (which is kind of true)
  • Soul-less, corporate shilling, good for shareholders not users
  • Everything here was "AI Slop"
  • "We are all so tired of AI"

It's easier to complain than to build, but there is some insight to glean from this.

Why the Backlash?

I believe the issue here isn't technology - It's control.

Users are expressing a consistent complaint - AI features are being forced into existing products with no meaningful way to opt-out.

That flashing AI button in Chrome, or YouTube Shorts that won't stay hidden despite repeated "Show Fewer" clicks. AI integration across Android, Docs, Drive, and Gmail - all non-negotiable.

One commenter captured the sentiment perfectly:

"Make an option to disable AI features. People don't want them."

The Lesson: Control Matters More Than Features

I believe that users aren't rejecting innovation. They're rejecting the loss of agency. When Google redesigns their core products that users have been relying on for years, without an easy opt-out, it doesn't feel like progress - it feels like being trapped.

My takeaway from this for my own products?

When introducing a new feature, and displaying it to the user for the first time:

  1. Give simple instructions for how they can use it
  2. Then add a simple toggle button, or some simple instruction on how they can turn it off / hide it if they don't want it

The sense of control often matters more than the feature itself.