Google's New AI Search Experience Faces Criticism for Broken Results
Quick Look
- Google's new AI-powered search results are drawing criticism for creating large empty spaces and providing irrelevant AI summaries for simple word searches, such as 'disregard'.
- Users must scroll past significant blank areas to find traditional links, unlike Bing's less aggressive AI integration.
AI-generated summary
Why It Matters
Google recently updated its search engine to prioritize AI summaries, pushing traditional "ten blue links" further down the page. This change has led to unexpected issues, such as the search for the word "disregard" resulting in a large empty space before the relevant link.
Earlier this week, Google rolled out a completely new Search experience, foregrounding AI summaries and kicking the traditional “ten blue links” far down the page.
But the sheer scale of Google Search means there are lots of edge cases that the company doesn’t seem to have considered.
For instance, this is what you’ll now get if you type the word “disregard” into Google Search.
Google has been catching some flack on social media for this, and it’s easy to see why. As you’ll notice, the Merriam-Webster link is still in there, but you have to scroll past a huge block of empty space. For most users, that single reply is the only thing you’ll see. And crucially, the AI response serves no conceivable value to a user searching the word “disregard.” It’s just a broken tool.
For context, here is the same search in Bing, which has been less aggressive about its AI summaries. It’s not perfect, but there is some useful information to be found here.
I have been a professional tech journalist for nearly fifteen years, and before today, I cannot think of a single time when a Bing search result was more valuable than the Google equivalent. There really is a first time for everything!
Open Questions
- What is Google's plan to address these edge cases?
- How many users are affected by these broken search results?
- Will Google revert or modify its AI summary approach based on this feedback?
