Devs create script to remove AI features from Windows, Signal’s Whittaker applauds
Software developers have created a PowerShell script to remove unpopular AI features from Windows 11. Users should proceed with caution, of course, but experts like Signal’s boss Meredith Whittaker are applauding the effort.
Image by Cybernews.
Software developers have created a PowerShell script to remove unpopular AI features from Windows 11. Users should proceed with caution, of course, but experts like Signal’s boss Meredith Whittaker are applauding the effort.
The script is available at a GitHub account belonging to a developer named “zoicware” and is called Remove Windows AI.
“The current 25H2 build of Windows 11 and future builds will include increasingly more AI features and components,” the project’s GitHub repo explains.
“This script aims to remove ALL of these features to improve user experience, privacy, and security.”
The script’s description says it disables registry keys, prevents reinstall of AI packages, disables Copilot policies, removes AI Appx packages, AI files, the highly-controversial optional Recall feature, and more.
In short, everything related to AI will be removed from your Windows 11 if you use this particular script. Instead, users will be able to replace “the modern AI-infested apps” with their classic versions.
There’s a warning, though. Third-party antivirus software “will falsely detect the script as malicious,” so users unsure about the code are advised to test it on a virtual machine first.
Still, since Microsoft angered so many when it positioned all those AI features in virtually every product it offers, especially the new Windows 11, projects like this are attracting attention.
Another initiative, Win11Debloat, allows you “to quickly declutter and improve your Windows experience,” for example.
Whittaker, the president of the secure messaging service Signal, describes similar projects as a “community-created harm reduction infrastructure to contest the alarming integration of AI agents into the Windows operating system (which is currently the most reckless deployment environment.”
We love to see it! Community-created harm reduction infrastructure to contest the alarming integration of AI agents into the Windows operating system (which is currently the most reckless deployment environment) ♥️ github.com/zoicware/Rem...
undefined Meredith Whittaker (@meredithmeredith.bsky.social) January 12, 2026 at 8:48 PM
[image or embed]
“We’re seeing plain text databases accessible to malware, insecure storage that ignores principles of least privilege, screen recording features like those we had to jankily defend against with Recall, and the creation and aggregation of new and invasive forensic data and other personal data that is putting us all at risk,” Whittaker said in December 2025.
Microsoft, though, will be hoping that projects such as this one won’t actually succeed. The tech giant’s CEO, Satya Nadella, seems to be a true believer in AI: he recently urged people to “move past arguments about AI slop.”
Unlock exclusive Cybernews content on YouTube.