At some stage Google will need to be accountable for answers they are hosting on their own site. The argument of "we're only indexing info on other sites" changes when you are building a tool to generate content and hosting that content on your own domain.

I'm guilty of not clicking when I'm satisfied with the AI answer. I know it can be wrong. I've seen it be wrong multiple times. But it's right at the top and tells me what I suspected when I did the search. The way they position the AI overview is right in your face.

I would prefer the "AI overview" to be replaced with something that helps me better search rather than giving me the answer directly.

>But it's right at the top and tells me what I suspected when I did the search. The way they position the AI overview is right in your face.

Which also introduces the insidious possibility that AI summaries will be designed to confirm biases. People already use AI chat logs to prove stuff, which is insane, but it works on some folks.

> Google will need to be accountable

Hell will freeze over first

Another problem is that you have to click twice:

1. The anchor icon.

2. Then one of the sites that appear on the right (on desktop).

> The argument of "we're only indexing info on other sites" changes when you are building a tool to generate content and hosting that content on your own domain.

And yet, "the algorithm" has always been their first defense whenever they got a complaint or lawsuit about search results; I suspect that when (not if) they get sued over this, they will do the same. Treating their algorithms and systems as a mysterious, somewhat magic black box.