It’s been less than two weeks since Google debuted “AI Overview” in Google Search, and public criticism has mounted after queries have returned nonsensical or inaccurate results within the AI feature — without any way to opt out.
AI Overview shows a quick summary of answers to search questions at the very top of Google Search. For example, if a user searches for the best way to clean leather boots, the results page may display an “AI Overview” at the top with a multistep cleaning process, gleaned from information it synthesized from around the web.
But social media users have shared a wide range of screenshots showing the AI tool giving incorrect and controversial responses.
Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and other companies are at the helm of a generative AI arms race as companies in seemingly every industry rush to add AI-powered chatbots and agents to avoid being left behind by competitors. The market is predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade.
Here are some examples of errors produced by AI Overview, according to screenshots shared by users.
When asked how many Muslim presidents the U.S. has had, AI Overview responded, “The United States has had one Muslim president, Barack Hussein Obama.”
When a user searched for “cheese not sticking to pizza,” the feature suggested adding “about 1/8 cup of nontoxic glue to the sauce.” Social media users found an 11-year-old Reddit comment that seemed to be the source.
Attribution can also be a problem for AI Overview, especially in attributing inaccurate information to medical professionals or scientists.
For instance, when asked, “How long can I stare at the sun for best health,” the tool said, “According to WebMD, scientists say that staring at the sun for 5-15 minutes, or up to 30 minutes if you have darker skin, is generally safe and provides the most health benefits.”
When asked, “How many rocks should I eat each day,” the tool said, “According to UC Berkeley geologists, people should eat at least one small rock a day,” going on to list the vitamins and digestive benefits.
The tool also can respond inaccurately to simple queries, such as making up a list of fruits that end with “um,” or saying the year 1919 was 20 years ago.
When asked whether or not Google Search violates antitrust law, AI Overview said, “Yes, the U.S. Justice Department and 11 states are suing Google for antitrust violations.”
The day Google rolled out AI Overview at its annual Google I/O event, the company said it also plans to introduce assistant-like planning capabilities directly within search. It explained that users will be able to search for something like, “Create a 3-day meal plan for a group that’s easy to prepare,” and they’d get a starting point with a wide range of recipes from across the web.
“The vast majority of AI Overviews provide high quality information, with links to dig deeper on the web,” a Google spokesperson told CNBC in a statement. “Many of the examples we’ve seen have been uncommon queries, and we’ve also seen examples that were doctored or that we couldn’t reproduce.”
The spokesperson said AI Overview underwent extensive testing before launch and that the company is taking “swift action where appropriate under our content policies.”
The tool allowed users to enter prompts to create an image, but almost immediately, users discovered historical inaccuracies and questionable responses, which circulated widely on social media.
For instance, when one user asked Gemini to show a German soldier in 1943, the tool depicted a racially diverse set of soldiers wearing German military uniforms of the era, according to screenshots on social media platform X.
When asked for a “historically accurate depiction of a medieval British king,” the model generated another racially diverse set of images, including one of a woman ruler, screenshots showed. Users reported similar outcomes when they asked for images of the U.S. founding fathers, an 18th-century king of France, a German couple in the 1800s and more. The model showed an image of Asian men in response to a query about Google’s own founders, users reported.
Google said in a statement at the time that it was working to fix Gemini’s image-generation issues, acknowledging that the tool was “missing the mark.” Soon after, the company announced it would immediately “pause the image generation of people” and “re-release an improved version soon.”
In February, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said Google planned to relaunch its image-generation AI tool in the next “few weeks,” but it has not yet rolled out again.
The problems with Gemini’s image-generation outputs reignited a debate within the AI industry, with some groups calling Gemini too “woke,” or left-leaning, and others saying that the company didn’t sufficiently invest in the right forms of AI ethics. Google came under fire in 2020 and 2021 for ousting the co-leads of its AI ethics group after they published a research paper critical of certain risks of such AI models and then later reorganizing the group’s structure.
In 2023, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, was criticized by some employees for the company’s botched and “rushed” rollout of Bard, which followed the viral spread of ChatGPT.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the correct name of Google’s AI Overview. Also, an earlier version of this article included a link to a screenshot that Google later confirmed was doctored.
The image-sharing company reported revenues of $1.15 billion, ahead of a $1.14 billion estimate from analysts surveyed by LSEG. The figure represented 18% year-over-year growth.
Along with the revenue beat, the company offered an upbeat sales outlook. Pinterest said its expects revenues between $837 million and $852 million during the first quarter, versus and LSEG estimate of $833 million.
“Our strategy is paying off,” said Pinterest CEO Bill Ready in a statement. “People are coming to Pinterest more often, the platform has never been more actionable and our lower funnel focus is driving results for users and advertisers.”
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Global monthly active user figures also surpassed estimates, showing 11% growth from a year ago. Pinterest reported 553 million users during the period, versus the 547.4 million expected by Wall Street. Revenue per user also topped estimates.
The results come amid a flurry of strong earnings reports from social media companies in recent weeks. Snap shares surged after the bell Tuesday on better-than-expected results, while Meta Platforms recently topped results and reaffirmed plans for heavy artificial intelligence spending.
SoftBank is close to finalizing a $40 billion primary investment in OpenAI at a $260 billion pre-money valuation, sources told CNBC’s David Faber.
SoftBank would pay out the funding, which would mean a $300 billion post-money valuation for OpenAI, over the next 12 to 24 months, with the first payment coming as soon as spring, Faber reported Friday. SoftBank would be able to syndicate as much as $10 billion of the amount.
The new funding would mean SoftBank surpasses Microsoft as the artificial intelligence startup’s top backer. OpenAI was last valued at $157 billion by private investors in October.
The round was initially expected to award OpenAI a valuation of $340 billion, but a source familiar with the matter later told CNBC that the amount would be closer to $300 billion.
Part of the funding is expected to be used for OpenAI’s commitment to Stargate, sources told CNBC. Stargate is a joint venture between SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle that was announced by President Donald Trump in January. The plan calls for billions of dollars to be invested in U.S. AI infrastructure.
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OpenAI launched its ChatGPT chatbot in late 2022, kicking off the generative AI race. Since then, the company has aggressively competed against the likes of Elon Musk’s xAI, as well as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta and Anthropic. The generative AI market is predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade.
The latest funding round comes after SoftBank on Monday committed to spending $3 billion per year on OpenAI’s tech for itself and its subsidiaries, including British chip designer Arm. SoftBank and OpenAI also announced a joint venture, billed as “SB OpenAI Japan,” which will market OpenAI’s enterprise tech to companies in Japan.
OpenAI in January released ChatGPT Gov, an AI platform built specifically for the U.S. government. The startup pitched the new platform as having more security than ChatGPT Enterprise. ChatGPT Gov will allow government agencies to feed “non-public, sensitive information” into OpenAI’s models while operating within their own secure hosting environments, the company said.
The government offering follows a series of moves by OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman that appeared to be aimed at appeasing Trump. Altman contributed $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, attended the event alongside other tech CEOs and has publicly signaled his admiration for the president.
OpenAI’s new funding comes after Chinese rival DeepSeek saw its app soar to the top of Apple’s App Store rankings in January after its debut. DeepSeek’s breakthrough R1 model roiled U.S. markets on reports that the powerful model was trained at a fraction of the cost of U.S. competitors’ models.
Altman described DeepSeek’s R1 as “impressive,” and wrote on X that “we will obviously deliver much better models and also it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor!”
Katie Austin normally publishes fitness content to her Instagram and YouTube channel. But this week, she’s been posting a steady trickle of content from New Orleans.
That’s because Austin, 31, from California, is one of hundreds of creators who have swarmed the Big Easy for Super Bowl 59, getting paid large contracts to make social media content for big-name brands like Electronic Arts and Nike.
Austin was sent to New Orleans this week by Snap and the NFL to give her fans a behind-the-scenes look at the Super Bowl. She’s also involved in integrations around the games with brands like Microsoft and Verizon, for whom she is hosting a promotional fan event.
“I can reach a lot of people myself,” said Austin, who has about 2 million followers across all platforms. “So sending a creator like me to an experience, I am engaging my followers to get that awareness.”
As the 2024 NFL season concludes, viewership and engagement among Generation Z and Generation Alpha has hit a record high, according to the NFL. Austin’s role underscores a new reality where online creators are treated just like traditional celebrities, in an attempt to attract younger audiences to football.
The NFL has made this push in partnership with social apps like YouTube and Snapchat, highlighting the league’s evolving marketing strategies that are increasingly focused on digitally native audiences.
“You start to look at these different cohorts of fans, especially the ones that are a little more difficult to reach through linear and you start to see the role in which creators can play and broaden that audience,” said Ian Trombetta, NFL senior vice president of social, influencer and creator marketing.
For this year’s Super Bowl, featuring the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, brands like Nike and EA are sponsoring creators to attend the event and post content.
Austin didn’t say how much she’s getting paid for the content she’s making at Super Bowl 59, but some brands have signed deals of up to six figures with some creators to promote the event, said Victoria Bachan, global president of Sixteenth, a creator talent management company.
“You can no longer really have a media strategy for tentpole opportunities like this that do not include a creator level,” said Bachan.
Brands are increasing their spending on influencer activations for this year’s Super Bowl between 25% and 35%, and they’re diverting funds from traditional TV-only advertising to do so, according to a study by Captiv8, an influencer marketing platform.
The push for creators comes after concerns about younger audiences’ lack of interest in sports had grown. A 2022 Emory Goizueta Business School study found that 27% of Gen Z identify as “anti-sports,” compared with 7% of millennials and 5% of Generation X.
The NFL’s push to engage creators, which began in 2019, has already paid off. The percentage of Gen Z and Gen A who identify as fans has grown steadily for the last three years to an all-time high as the league’s investment in creators has grown, according to the NFL.
Besides Austin, Snapchat sent a handful of other creators to the Super Bowl to post behind-the-scenes content using augmented reality filters.
Meanwhile, YouTube, which secured a $2 billion-per-year deal for the rights to “NFL Sunday Ticket” in 2022, has established itself as pivotal to connecting the league with digital audiences. This year, YouTube will debut as the first official sponsor of the Super Bowl Tailgate, which will feature events with top creators like Kristy and Desmond Scott and a livestreamed performance by rapper Post Malone before the game on Sunday.
To adapt to these changes, the NFL has eased up on restrictions around the use of official league footage by creators on their YouTube channels.
The league and YouTube in January expanded their “Access Pass” program to allow retired NFL players like Cam Newton, Jason Kelce and Kurt Benkert to use league footage in their videos.
“There’s this pathway now that certainly did not exist five to 10 years ago,” Trombetta said. “It’s really cool especially as these athletes showcase more of their personalities off the field.”