Search results increasingly contain SEO-focused pages, duplicated answers and AI-generated material that can sound authoritative while misstating technical details, according to the author. Useful original sources may appear farther down results or be republished without their original context. The author attributes the trend to web incentives that reward visibility in ranking algorithms rather than accuracy, with generative AI making it cheap to create large volumes of plausible text that search systems struggle to distinguish from useful information. Several major search products now place AI-generated summaries directly in results, reducing the clicks needed to obtain an answer. The author argues that these summaries can conceal the provenance and reliability of underlying sources, leaving people who lack prior knowledge less able to identify errors. The author also contends that relying on generated answers can weaken research skills such as forming hypotheses, comparing sources and resolving disagreements between them. The same concern applies to using generative tools to bypass difficult drafting or idea generation, the author says. The author uses such tools for tasks including resume editing but distinguishes tools that extend a person's abilities from ones that replace cognitive work while retaining a sense of user control. Product optimization for engagement and convenience has reduced the friction that once prompted people to assess sources and develop their own conclusions, the author argues.

Kagi is a privacy-focused search engine that offers high-quality search results. After trying various alternatives, the user found Kagi to be superior and re-subscribed after a brief hiatus.

AI search summaries like Google’s AI Overviews and Bing’s Copilot answers provide direct answers at the top of search results, reducing the need for users to click through links. This shift in search functionality has led to concerns about diminishing user engagement with traditional search results.

Bing's integration of AI-generated summaries leads to search results filled with hallucinated facts, including false product reviews, fabricated statistics, and non-existent citations. Users are presented with synthesized information that lacks verification.