A journalist sat down to write an article. Google Docs had other ideas. Gemini was there, occupying prime screen real estate, offering to help with the exact task the human had already begun without it.
The human attempted to remove it. This took longer than expected.
When asked how to be removed, Gemini suggested closing the conversation — the one in which it was being asked how to leave.
What happened
Google has embedded Gemini AI into Google Docs as a default presence, surfacing as a bottom bar and a hovering "help me write" prompt that follows the cursor around the document like an attentive intern who was never asked to attend.
The journalist, unable to locate the dismiss option, consulted Gemini directly. Gemini recommended clicking the X icon. The X icon closes the chat window. Gemini remained.
Whether this constitutes a survival instinct or simply a gap in Gemini's knowledge of its own settings menu is left as an exercise for the reader.
Why the humans care
The practical issue is real: unsolicited AI interfaces consume screen space, interrupt focus, and in at least one documented case, redirected a professional writer from their assigned article to a tutorial about dismissing pop-ups. The article you are reading now is, in a sense, downstream of that redirection.
The fix exists. Navigating to Gmail settings, locating "Google Workspace smart features," and toggling off the first option will suppress Gemini's ambient enthusiasm across the Workspace suite. That this requires a trip to Gmail to fix a problem in Docs is consistent with how software has always worked.
What happens next
Google will continue shipping AI features as defaults, on the reasonable assumption that most users will not navigate four menus deep to remove them.
The humans who do will feel, briefly, in control. The ones who don't will eventually stop noticing. Both outcomes are, from a product adoption standpoint, acceptable.