A new open-source command-line tool called RemoveMacAI can strip Apple Intelligence off your Mac and claw back about 12GB of disk space.
Apple used to offer a single Settings toggle to turn off Apple Intelligence entirely. That toggle disappeared in macOS 27, and the on-device AI models now stay on your drive whether you use them or not. The features themselves got scattered across different settings panes, several of them buried under Screen Time. RemoveMacAI, first flagged by MacRumors, says it simply automates finding and disabling that dozen or so settings and deleting the leftover model files.
This is a small but telling data point: Apple's AI rollout now assumes you want it, and opting out takes more effort than opting in. For anyone who doesn't use Writing Tools or Genmoji, that is 12GB of storage held hostage by a feature they never asked for.
It's a reminder that "it just works" increasingly means "it just runs, whether you asked it to or not."