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We all know AI tools can do a lot these days.
But how good are they at searching the internet?
Its a big question, and it matters.
Some turn toChatGPTand other chatbots.
Others use AI tools built specifically for searching and researching, like Perplexity.
In short, AI-powered search is everywhere.
But heres the real question: is it actually any good?
Thats what researchers are starting to ask, and lets just say, the early reviews arent glowing.
Is ChatGPT the new Google?
Not so fast…
People might be using AI tools for search.
But that doesnt mean they should.
The results were… mixed.
Not a total disaster they could all retrieve some relevant info but accuracy wasnt great.
And the way they summarized that information?
Often confusing or just not that helpful.
In total, AI models gave an incorrect answer to more than 60% of queries.
Grok fared the worst, with a frankly shocking 94% failure rate.
Some of the worst examples were clearhallucinations, where AI just… makes stuff up.
Search without sources isn’t search at all
This repackaging gets to the heart of the problem.
“These chatbots conversational outputs often obfuscate serious underlying issues with information quality.
There is an urgent need to evaluate how these systems access, present, and cite news content.
One of the clearest issues is how poorly AI tools cite their sources.
Thats a problem for two key reasons.
Firstly, publishers lose out on traffic, even though their content is being used.
Secondly, fact-checking becomes a pain.
Yes, AI tools are improving all the time.
And yes, some, like Perplexity, perform better than others.
But even the best still need human oversight.
For now, when it comes to search, the bots just arent ready to fly solo.
