It's not just you. A lot people think Google searches are getting worse. And the rise of generative AI chatbots is giving people new and different ways to look up information.
While Google has been the one-stop shop for decades 鈥 after all, we commonly call searches 鈥済oogling鈥 鈥 its longtime dominance has attracted a flood of sponsored or spammy links and junk content fueled by 鈥渟earch engine optimization鈥 techniques. That pushes down genuinely useful results.
A recent study by German researchers suggests the quality of results from Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo is indeed declining. Google says its results are of significantly better quality than its rivals, citing measurements by third parties.
Now, chatbots powered by generative artificial intelligence, including from Google itself, are poised to shake up how search works. But they have their own issues: Because the tech is so new, there are concerns about AI chatbots鈥 accuracy and reliability.
If you want to try the AI way, here's a how-to:
Google users don't have to look far. The company last year launched its own AI chatbot assistant, known as Bard, but recently retired that name and replaced it with a similar service, Gemini.
Bard users are now redirected to the Gemini site, which can be accessed directly on desktop or mobile browsers.
The Gemini app also launched in the U.S. this month and is rolling out in Japanese, Korean and English globally 鈥 except in Britain, Switzerland and Europe 鈥 according to an update notice, which hints that more countries and languages will be 鈥渃oming soon.鈥
Google also has been testing out a new search offering, dubbed 鈥淪earch Generative Experience鈥 that replaces links with an AI-generated snapshot of key info. But it鈥檚 limited to U.S. users signing up through its experimental Labs site.
Microsoft鈥檚 Bing search engine has provided generative AI searches powered by OpenAI鈥檚 ChatGPT technology for about a year, first under the name Bing Chat, now rebranded as Copilot.
On the Bing search home page, click the Chat or Copilot button underneath the search window and you鈥檒l get a conversational interface where you type your question. There鈥檚 also a Copilot app.
A slew of startup AI search sites have emerged, but they aren't as easy to find. A standard Google search isn't that helpful, but searches on Copilot and Bard turned up a number of names, including Perplexity, HuggingChat, You.com, Komo, Andi, Phind, Exa and AskAI.
Most of these services have free versions. They typically limit how many queries you can make but offer premium levels that provide smarter AI and more features.
Gemini users, for example, can pay $20 for the advanced version, which comes with access to its 鈥渕ost capable鈥 model, Ultra 1.0.
Gemini users need to be signed in to their Google accounts and be at least 13 years old 鈥 18 in Europe or Canada. Copilot users don't have to to sign in to a Microsoft account and can access the service through Bing search or Copilot home pages.
Startup sites are largely free to use and don't require setting up an account. Many also have premium levels.
Rather than typing in a string of keywords, AI queries should be conversational 鈥 for example, 鈥淚s Taylor Swift the most successful female musician?鈥 or 鈥淲here are some good places to travel in Europe this summer?鈥
Perplexity advises using 鈥渆veryday, natural language." Phind says it's best to ask 鈥渇ull and detailed questions鈥 that start with, say, 鈥渨hat is鈥 or 鈥渉ow to."
A portion of a Opera page showing the incorporation of AI technology is shown in London, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024. The rise of generative AI chatbots is giving people new and different ways to look up information. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
If you're not satisfied with an answer, some sites let you ask follow up questions to zero in on the information needed. Some give suggested or related questions.
Microsoft's Copilot lets you choose three different chat styles: creative, balanced or precise.
Unlike Google search results that throw up a list of links, including sponsored ones, AI chatbots spit out a readable summary of the information, sometimes with a few key links as footnotes. The answers will vary 鈥 sometimes widely 鈥 depending on the site.
They can shine when you鈥檙e searching for an obscure factoid, such as, say, a detail about a European Union policy.
Answers from Phind.com were among the most readable and consistently were provided in a narrative form. But the site has mysteriously gone offline at some points.
Testing a simple query 鈥 what鈥檚 the average temperature in London for the second half of February? 鈥 produced a similar range of results on most sites: 7 to 9 C.
Andi strangely provided current weather conditions for New York, though it used the correct city during another try later.
Another search 鈥 the names and tenures of the CEOs of British luxury car maker Aston Martin 鈥 is the kind of info available online but needs some work to piece together.
Most sites came up with names from the past decade or two. AskAI provided a list dating to 1947, along with its top three 鈥渁uthoritative sources,鈥 but without links.
While chatbots may sound authoritative because they produce answers that seem like they鈥檙e written by a confident human, they鈥檙e not always correct. AI chatbots have been known for providing deceptively convincing responses, dubbed 鈥渉allucinations." HuggingChat warns, 鈥淕enerated content may be inaccurate or false鈥 and Gemini says it could 鈥渄isplay inaccurate info, including about people.鈥
These AI systems scan vast pools of information culled from the web, known as large language models, and then use algorithms to come up with coherent answers, but not all reveal how they arrived at their responses.
Some AI chatbots disclose the models that their algorithms have been trained on. Others provide few or no details. The best advice is to try more than one and compare the results, and always double-check sources.
For example, at one point Komo insisted Canada's population in 1991 was about one million people and stood by this wrong number even after I followed up to ask if it was sure. It cited a Wikipedia page, which revealed the figure came from a table for the country's indigenous population. It found the correct number when I tried again later.
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