AI-powered search engines rely on “less popular” sources, researchers find
Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav Since last year’s disastrous rollout of Google’s AI Overviews, the world at large has been aware of how AI-powered search results can differ wildly from the traditional list of links search engines have generated for decades. Now, new research helps quantify that difference, showing that AI search engines tend to cite less popular websites and ones that wouldn’t even appear in the Top 100 links listed in an “organic” Google search. In the pre-print paper “Characterizing Web Search in The Age of Generative AI,” researchers from Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, and the Max Planck…
