[wodenokoto]

> But you could still dig through it and find those primary sources. That is, in my opinion, the primary purpose of a search engine.

And you are a small minority. People go to google to get answers, not to look for articles in order to look for answers in the articles.

[andrepd]

Yeah all you need is answer-shaped text. Why would the truth of that answer matter at all?

[comex]

Personally I think I've developed a pretty good sense of when a question is easy enough that I can just trust the AI overview, and when I need to dig deeper. Google's original AI overviews were not reliable enough to ever trust, but now they are usually accurate summaries of the cited sources.

Job market statistics are actually probably a strong point for the AI overview. I just Googled 'us job market last month' and got an AI overview that accurately summarized a New York Times article for qualitative information ("surprisingly strong 115,000 jobs", "no-hire, no-fire"), followed by accurately summarizing the official Bureau of Labor Statistics website for raw stats, followed by some other stuff I didn't check. Not everyone would prefer The New York Times' take, but the citation prominently displays their name and logo, so you can tell what you're getting.

Weak points are when the topic is obscure enough that the AI overview conflates two different things or overgeneralizes, or trusts the wrong sources.