Is AI Invading Every Product by Force?
As computer enthusiasts, we love trying out every new feature that lands in our favorite apps and devices. Sure, we appreciate the routine "bug fixes and stability improvements," but the real excitement comes from enhancements that users have requested, sometimes for years. Lately, though, we've spotted a troubling trend: companies are shoving AI into everything, even when it makes little sense.
Before we go further, let's be clear: we are huge AI fans. We get genuinely excited when AI tackles meaningful problems, such as medical diagnosis or fraud detection. We're avid AI hobbyists ourselves, running Ollama alongside Home Assistant to add smarter control and a built-in chatbot. We're also thrilled to see more privacy-focused options emerge, like Proton's Lumo or Brave's Leo, which prioritize privacy and security.
Many people view AI as a magical oracle that instantly delivers answers, generates fun images and videos, helps with education, or assists with coding. That's impressive, but there's a critical side many overlook. In most cases, your data isn't processed locally. Depending on the service, your conversations can be logged and later handed over in court ("OpenAI Must Turn Over 20 Million ChatGPT Logs, Judge Affirms"), or exposed through hacks, prompt injection attacks, or other vulnerabilities. This is where our enthusiasm turns to serious concern, especially around privacy and security.
Yet that hasn't slowed companies down. They're going all in on AI, forcing it into product after product, and far too often there's no simple way to turn it off.
Copilot on Your TV? The Forced AI Push Hits a New Low
The inclusion of AI into literally everything reached a stark inflection point in the fourth quarter of 2025. Microsoft has long integrated Copilot into its own ecosystem: Office (now Microsoft 365 Copilot) and Windows 11 included. Those are their products, and users can choose alternatives if the AI features don't appeal. But disabling those integrations often requires digging through hidden menus, toggling obscure options, or even editing registry settings. For many people we know with varying levels of tech savvy, that's a frustrating barrier, though it's a separate discussion about usability and user experience.
The real tipping point came when LG smart TV owners applied the latest firmware update in late 2025. Suddenly, a new Copilot icon appeared on the home screen. Worse, it wasn't clear what data the TV might share with it (like viewing habits or connected device activity), and there was no obvious way to remove it. This wasn't a highly requested feature. It was pushed onto users without warning or consent.
Tom's Hardware covered the backlash in their "LG TV users baffled by unremovable Microsoft Copilot installation — surprise forced update shows app pinned to the home screen (Updated)" article, which noted LG's plans to allow removal of the shortcut following consumer outrage.
AI Isn't New, But the Lack of Control Is
In some respects, we've been using AI for years, even in its most basic forms. One could argue that spell check was a simple form of AI that has frustrated us for decades. Whether it was the infamous swap to "ducking" (which we never meant to type) or misspelling a word so badly that the tool couldn't guess it, reliance on spell check has softened our spelling skills over time. The key difference? We could always add words to our personal dictionary to prevent the same mistakes in the future. That control mattered.
We've grown accustomed to other pattern-recognition tools too, like autocomplete in search engines. Now, however, AI is appearing in everything from TVs to web browsers to operating systems, often with little acknowledgment of its privacy and security risks. It's time to demand that software publishers slow down until these concerns are properly addressed.
The Better Way: Ente Photos as an Example
When we moved away from Google Photos, we knew we'd miss its built-in AI features. Searching for photos by person, place, or scene had been incredibly useful. During our search for a privacy-focused replacement, we found Ente Photos. At the time, it was beta-testing local machine learning, and that capability is now a standard feature. It offers similar search power, but all processing happens on your device. We haven't lost the convenience of finding pictures of friends and family quickly. More importantly, the feature runs locally and can be disabled with one toggle. Ente even recommends enabling it on desktop first for the initial scan to speed things up, but the choice remains yours.
Final Thoughts
We want to see more products follow Ente's approach. AI can greatly enhance the user experience, but only if it comes with full user control and transparent disclosures. We should decide which features matter to us and fully understand the trade-offs.
We also have the option of selecting products that don't include AI, such as GrapheneOS for mobile operating systems or LibreOffice for productivity, or products that put the owner in control, like Ente does with its on-device machine learning and simple toggles.
Ultimately, we vote with our wallets. Every time we choose to pay for (or subscribe to) a privacy-respecting tool like Ente, or switch away from forced-AI products, we're sending a clear signal to software publishers: respectful, optional, and transparent AI is what we'll reward with our money and loyalty. The more of us who prioritize control and privacy in our purchasing decisions, whether by supporting indie developers, open-source projects, or ethical companies, the stronger the incentive for the industry to shift away from invasive integrations.
It's up to us to tell software publishers that this is our expectation moving forward. By actively choosing better alternatives, we can drive real change.
Remember: We may not have anything to hide, but everything to protect.
