For queries where there’s lots of information online, like San Francisco restaurants, AI web search can feel incredibly useful. For less popular destinations and more specific requests (“dining tables shaped like stars”), you need to be more careful with the results, as the way that AI joins the dots then becomes less reliable.
So, with the caveat that you should always do some kind of double-check, AI web search works best for common queries that are likely to lead to a lot of accurate, up-to-date information online. In both the way they process search queries, and package together and synthesize answers, AI chatbots are a significant upgrade on googling.
When Not to Use AI for Web Search
The way generative AI bots and LLMs are put together means they work best when paraphrasing, synthesizing, and summarizing. But these processes can also introduce mistakes. If your search needs precise details (like a celebrity quotation, a report stat, or a device specification), a traditional Google search may work best.
Heading to Google and searching the old way is also likely to be better if you want full control over the sources used. Offloading web searches to AI is convenient, but you’re relying on them to interpret your search correctly, find the right sources, and then extract accurate information from those sources. It saves time, but it’s more opaque.
AI search gives you an answer—but is it using sources you trust?Courtesy of David Nield
