It's clear: You don't trust AI-generated search results

Google has embraced AI in its searches for a while now via its so-called SGE initiative. This sees AI being used for result summaries and more. However, it turns out that OpenAI might offer an AI-powered search engine of its own.

Should search engines bother with infusing AI into their search results, though? It turns out that loads of polled users on our website, X account, and YouTube page simply don’t trust AI-generated search results.

Mistrust around AI in search

Some interest in AI-powered search

It seems like our audience does think there are some merits to a ChatGPT-powered search engine from OpenAI itself, with the most popular pick on YouTube (45%) and Twitter (31.97%)  being “yes, for some searches.” But this wasn’t the most popular choice on our website, with just 24.46% of readers choosing this option.

Some people, like YouTube follower trobinson14kc reckon that AI-powered search could be useful for a few tasks:

AI is useful for specific things, like getting a quickie explanation (assuming you know how to pose the question) or say writing a paper you have no time for. Otherwise, Google search is better in so many ways. (easy to refine, getting price quotes, mapping, etc.)

This was also echoed by a few other users, pointing to potential functionality like finding products on Amazon.

Meanwhile, just 14% of YouTube respondents, 16.67% of polled website readers, and 17.88% of Twitter users claimed they’d “definitely” use a ChatGPT search engine and even make it their primary engine.

But the lack of trust runs deep

The most popular answer on our website, however, was “nah, not for me,” with 30.51% of website readers voting this way. This rose to 29.1% on Twitter, but sank to 25% on YouTube.

YouTube follower somekid2091 felt that AI had already had a negative effect on Google searches:

AI has already ruined Google search. I can only imagine it would be even worse.

Several other users expressed concerns about inaccurate information and hallucinations. “The scariest thing about AI searches for me is how it can be confidently wrong,” noted user superhamz7.

Still, between the polled users willing to try an AI-powered search engine and the respondents who will “definitely” use it, it looks like there’s certainly a lot of interest in this endeavor. But any future ChatGPT-powered search engine by OpenAI would need to seriously address quality concerns if it hopes to be here for the long term.