Latest news with #AIOverview
Android Authority
3 days ago
- Business
- Android Authority
Google's AI Overview now correctly answers it's 2025, but leaves us with major trust issues
Google TL;DR Google Search's AI Overview previously gave confident but wrong answers for the simple search query 'Is it 2025?'. This has now been fixed, and AI Overview gives the right answer. More importantly, Google no longer hides the disclaimer about possible mistakes in the AI Overview answer, which helps remind users to double-check results. Users can continue to add '-ai' to searches to turn off the AI Overview results for a cleaner, more traditional Google Search experience. Two days ago, we at Android Authority were the first to report on an embarrassing AI Overview gaffe where Google Search would incorrectly but confidently give the wrong answer for the simple query 'Is it 2025?'. At the time of reporting, we had tried multiple times to get the correct answer, but Google Search would fail differently, but fail nonetheless. Thankfully, it seems Google has now fixed the answer, as AI Overview now correctly responds that it indeed is 2025. Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority We had reached out to Google, but the company hasn't yet responded with a statement or comments. Nonetheless, Google Search finally returns the right answer, although the source cited for the answer keeps changing. More notably, the disclaimer text 'AI responses may include mistakes' remains visible right in the answer snippet, which was previously hidden behind a 'Show more' tag. This is important as it highlights that users shouldn't entirely rely on the AI-generated response and should ideally double-check the AI Overview answer. Most of us obviously know the answer for such a simple search query, but it's a good example to showcase that we shouldn't rely on AI Overview with blind faith, especially on more complex queries where we may not be able to distinguish the right from the wrong. AI Overview has previously been spotted giving people confident but wrong answers for gibberish idioms, so this mistrust is warranted. If you are frustrated by the lack of credible information in such search results, you can consider turning off AI Overviews for a cleaner, more conventional Google Search experience. If you want to do it on a single query, you can add -ai to your search terms to disable the AI Overview response for that query. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.
WIRED
3 days ago
- Business
- WIRED
Google AI Overviews Says It's Still 2024
When asked to confirm the current year, Google's AI-generated top result confidently answers, 'No, it is not 2025.' Photo-Illustration:I've covered Google's AI Overviews since its messy rollout last year, when screenshots of absurdly wrong answers started popping up at the top of search results and going viral on social media. Still, when I first saw images of AI Overviews confidently saying that it's still 2024 in Reddit posts today, I thought they might be altered screenshots. I mean, over a billion Google users currently see the AI-generated results every month. Surely, such an obvious error would have been caught and patched by now? I was wrong. Repeating the prompt 'is it 2025' verbatim three times gave me three different AI Overview results, yet the first sentence was the same in each result: 'No, it is not 2025.' The erroneous results cited multiple websites, ranging from Reddit's r/AskHistorians to a Wikipedia entry for the year 2025. The first time I asked Google Search for confirmation of the year, the AI results included a shot at the exact date as well: 'It is May 28, 2024.' (I ran these tests on May 29, 2025.) The synthetic gaslighting got wilder, somehow, on the second try: 'According to the provided information, for some locations it might be 2025, but not everywhere on Earth.' However, my third attempt was so nonsensical and riddled with paradoxes that it's worth publishing the whole thing: No, it is not 2025. The current year is 2024. According to the provided information, for some locations around the world, like Kiribati, New Zealand, and some parts of Russia and Australia, it is currently 2025. However, the current date is May 29, 2025 in San Francisco, CA [zip code redacted]. The twists! The turns! This AI Overview has everything. Starting off with a claim that it's actually last year. Then, a repeat of a previous mistake—this time more detailed—about it being 2025 somewhere else in the world right now. A New Zealand shout-out for some reason. Then, a Shyamalan-esque conclusion where it says the real date, paired with my home zip code. Although Google likely knows where I am most waking minutes, having my zip code folded into the AI Overview result did make me feel uncomfortable. A spokesperson for Google was not immediately able to comment. After the initial launch for AI Overviews a year ago, Liz Reid, who leads Search at Google, responded to the viral errors in a blog post that admitted the company screwed up. 'There's nothing quite like having millions of people using the feature with many novel searches. We've also seen nonsensical new searches, seemingly aimed at producing erroneous results,' she wrote. At the bottom of every AI Overview, the results today still contain a disclaimer that AI results may not be accurate. At Google's I/O developer conference earlier this month, which I feel like I need to reassure you was in 2025, one of the biggest software launches was AI Mode. It's a chatbot-style version of Google Search designed for longer queries that's available for all users in the United States. In one of my tests where AI Overviews got the year wrong, the result included a big button at the bottom inviting me to 'dig deeper' by opening AI Mode. The newer AI search option did, in fact, say the correct year on the first try. (A low bar.) Even though Google is trying to improve its AI answers as it expands to additional generative search tools, odd results are sticking around. Recently, users also discovered that you could type a nonsensical phrase into Google Search, slap the word 'meaning' at the end, and get an AI Overview attempting to pass off whatever you input as some kind of well-known saying. Similar to that case, this is an important reminder about the continued mistakes present in any kind of AI-generated output. While you're using software that's built on predicting the next word, like the underlying large language models powering generative AI tools are designed to do, a consistent skepticism is still required. Online, these kinds of AI errors aren't going away anytime soon.
Android Authority
5 days ago
- Business
- Android Authority
Don't Google "Is it 2025?" unless you want to laugh at the state of AI
Google TL;DR Google Search's AI Overview results are known to confidently give wrong answers, and they continue to do so. The latest gaffe surfaced when users asked if it is 2025, to which AI Overview incorrectly claims it is 2024 and not 2025. Such confidently wrong results highlight the perils of relying on AI for fact-checking. Users can turn off AI Overview for cleaner search results. If you bumped your head a few years ago and just woke up, brace yourself: the world is basically run by AI now, for better or worse. You're probably dizzy, half from the concussion, and the other half from all the AI chatbots around you. Once you recover from the shock and Google if it's finally 2025, AI still can't tell you if it indeed is 2025. Reddit user Independent-Wait-873 asked Google Search if it was 2025, to which Google Search's AI Overview very confidently replied that it wasn't 2025 but 2024. Curiously, AI Overview got the date and month right for the user, but it couldn't get the year right. We tried it for ourselves, and sure enough, AI Overview confidently gives the wrong answer for the search query 'Is it 2025?' In the original response, the disclaimer 'AI responses may include mistakes' is hidden until you click Show More, which users won't since the rest of the search result is blank — there's nothing there to expect more content. One would also reasonably expect AI responses not to be displayed if they may include mistakes. Thankfully, if you ask Google 'What year is it?' the question doesn't trigger an AI Overview and shows just '2025' in a snippet, with no mistakes. One can argue that asking the right question is a skill if you want to find the right answer through Google. But in the age of AI and AI Overview, even the most basic questions get confident wrong answers, and to anyone innocently asking these questions, it may not be apparent that the answer is incorrect. For instance, people have Googled gibberish idioms, and AI Overview gave them confident but wrong answers. If you are frustrated by the lack of credible information in such search results, you can consider turning off AI Overviews for a cleaner, more conventional Google Search experience. Google has said in the past that AI Overviews don't appear for every query. Instead, they are designed to surface when Google's systems are most confident that an AI Overview will be high-quality and helpful. When AI Overviews are triggered on queries where they might not be as helpful, Google uses those examples to improve the triggers. Given that Google Search continues to process billions of search queries every day, the company says there are bound to be some oddities, as there are with all Search features. We've contacted Google for a statement on this latest AI Overview faux pas. We'll update this article when we learn more. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.
Independent Singapore
24-05-2025
- Business
- Independent Singapore
Is Google the new encyclopaedia? After AI Overviews comes AI Mode — 'a total reimagining of search', says Sundar Pichai
Is Google the new encyclopaedia? The question arises because it is no longer just retrieving information but also synthesising it in its own words through an AI Overview that sometimes appears at the top of Google search results pages. But publishers aren't happy. The News/Media Alliance, representing US and Canadian media, says publishers are deprived of traffic and revenue. Rubbing salt in the wound, they cannot stop Google from using their content. What about copyright? Isn't using others' content without their consent a violation of copyright? Don't large media organisations employ armies of lawyers to take action against infringements? Doesn't Google itself penalise plagiarism by demoting such pages in its search rankings? Yes, but Google's AI Overview is built in such a way that it can use content even without the publishers' consent. That's according to Google's own chatbot. Why publishers' consent not needed Gemini says Google can train AI Overviews on web content even when publishers have opted out of training Google's AI products. It adds: Google DeepMind, the company's AI research lab that developed Gemini, has an opt-out policy for publishers who don't want their content used for general AI training. However, DeepMind's opt-out mechanism does not prevent Google's search organisation from using that same content for AI Overviews. See also New Developments in Google Antitrust Probe 'AI Overviews primarily draw information from Google's organic search index, which is the vast catalogue of websites Google has already crawled, rendered, and indexed to inform traditional search rankings. If a website is indexed by Google Search, its content can be used for AI Overviews,' says Gemini. 'The only way for publishers to fully prevent their content from being used by Google's search AI is to opt out of being indexed by Google Search altogether.' But publishers don't want to be removed from Google. They want to be indexed and appear in its search results to attract readers who might not otherwise visit their sites. More content, fewer click-throughs Google, for its part, also needs new content to satisfy users — its search results pages have been bursting with new material since the advent of AI. The SEO marketing company BrightEdge says that 'overall search impressions for websites on Google have increased by 49%' since the launch of AI Overviews in May 2024. See also Samsung Galaxy Z Flip: news, leaks and specs But click-through rates are down 30%, it adds. Internet users are visiting fewer web pages linked by Google, as they are getting the information they need directly from AI Overviews. AI Mode Now, publishers face an even bigger worry—the AI Mode being rolled out by Google in the United States. 'This new feature would offer users information and answers to their queries without the array of links offered in traditional Google Search, further depriving publishers of both traffic and revenue,' the News/Media Alliance said in a statement. The Wall Street Journal explains that AI Mode answers search queries in a chatbot-style conversation without the standard list of blue links. It says AI Mode is being introduced as a new tab within Search for US users. This feature will make interacting with Google more like having a conversation with an expert capable of answering a wide array of questions. There are already chatbot-style search engines, such as with growing user bases and revenues, though none yet rival Google. But Google doesn't want to miss the chatbot bandwagon, believing that's where the future lies. It has reason to think so, as its conversational synthesis and summaries in AI Overviews are proving popular. About 1.5 billion people now regularly engage with AI Overviews, according to Google, and most users are entering longer and more complex queries. 'What all this progress means is that we are in a new phase of the AI platform shift, where decades of research are now becoming reality for people all over the world,' Google CEO Sundar Pichai said at Google I/O 2025 on Tuesday (May 20). 'It's a total reimagining of search.' The New York Times noted that by launching AI Mode, Google is trying to modernise its search business before AI competitors can challenge its dominance. Google has been hesitant to fully embrace AI because it has so much to lose, says the Times. The company's search business generated nearly $200 billion last year—more than half its total revenue. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google handles as much as 90% of the world's internet searches. Now, imagine if even a quarter of those searches shift to AI Mode. Publishers have reason to lose sleep.
Sydney Morning Herald
21-05-2025
- General
- Sydney Morning Herald
Idiom or idiot? Google's AI Overview is trying its best
Fine words butter no parsnips. A ludicrous phrase, though it's true. Or real at least, listed in the Oxford and elsewhere. Maybe you've met the proverb before, hiding in a PG Wodehouse novel. Yet imagine you haven't. What does it mean? Fancy speech is all very well, perhaps, but it fails to deliver material benefits. Talk is cheap, in other words. Elegant waffle won't moisten your greens. Facing fresh idiom, humans play this mental game, speculating what a lip-sticked pig connotes, a milkshake duck, a rat with a gold tooth. We base our guesswork on kindred expressions or meld the idiom's disparate ingredients into a cogent whole. Ethiopians say, 'The smaller the lizard, the greater its hope of becoming a crocodile.' I don't know the aphorism, but I reckon I could fumble my way towards an answer. Google's AI Overview thinks likewise. Rather than admit ignorance, the software gives any mystery phrase a go, be that a Chinese wisdom or a make-believe badger like Crab Man's prank in April. Crab Man is a Bluesky avatar who learnt that AI Overview is up for defining any guff. 'You can't lick a badger twice.' That was a beta test, a fabrication tapped into Google's window with 'meaning' added to the tail. According to Overview, the proverb means 'you can't trick or deceive someone a second time after they've been tricked once'. Bingo: the machine translation as feasible as the input idiom despite both being phony. Once social media caught wind, fake phrases proliferated, fed into Overview to see what bunkum came back. Allegedly, 'a shower a day keeps the ventriloquist away' means hygiene deters discouragement. While 'you can take your dog to the beach, but you can't sail it to Switzerland' suggests some tasks are manageable, while others are complex. Which is true-ish, for all the gaslighting going on. Kyle Orland, senior gaming editor at Ars Technica, argues in Overview's defence, admitting 'I've come away impressed with the model's almost poetic attempts to glean meaning from gibberish, to make sense out of the senseless'. A perfect example lies in one exchange. For starters, 'dream makes the steam' deserves to be a motto. Just as the proposed translation – how imagination powers innovation – is faultless. Compare that to the claptrap the dad offers in the Telstra ad, telling his son they built the Great Wall of China 'during the time of the Emperor Nasi Goreng, to keep the rabbits out'. If you don't know, say so.
