Google’s AI overviews are 44% more likely to trash your brand than ChatGPT

AI chatbots and search engines are sometimes negative about brands, and the end result—while arguably good for the end consumer—is a wake-up call for companies.

A study of hundreds of millions of prompts across three industries (apparel, electronics, and education) conducted by search engine optimization company BrightEdge found Google’s AI Overviews was 44% more likely to display negative information about a brand than OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Still, when consumers prompted ChatGPT to decide between the two products, the roles flipped, with ChatGPT being more negative.

While the overwhelming majority of responses analyzed in the study were either positive or neutral, a small percentage of responses were negative for both Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT, 2.3% and 1.6%, respectively.

BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu told Fortune while these percentages may seem small, multiplied across hundreds of millions of results, they can still equate to loads of negative queries, which can affect a company’s image in the eyes of potential consumers. For every million queries, an estimated 23,000 would yield a negative response by AI Overviews, based on the data from the study.

Google, in particular, Yu said, is pulling out negative information associated with ...