Anyone who has been on the internet in the past year has heard of the infamous AI debate. One side hails AI as an improvement to human efficiency while the other side sees it as a detriment to human creativity. 

Nevertheless, tech companies have been quick to implement AI into their apps and websites. Perhaps one of the most notable of these is Google, who introduced their “AI overview” feature in May of 2024. 

Some will agree that, since its introduction, Google’s AI overview has been more irritating than helpful. 

For those who don’t know, the feature provides users with an AI-generated response to their Google searches. It references information from multiple sources to provide these answers. 

What makes this feature so inconvenient is that, sometimes, the answer being provided by AI is completely false or nonsensical. Since AI overview’s release, users have been sharing the feature’s strange responses on social media. 

Granted, the answers have become more accurate since the feature’s launch, but the possibility of inaccurate responses can be genuinely dangerous to some people, especially young children. 

The placement of the feature is another annoyance for users. For nearly every search on Google, users have to scroll past the large block of AI text to find their answer. This becomes repetitive and downright annoying after a few searches.

What’s worse is that, at the time of writing this, users can’t disable AI overview. So, for the unforeseen future, users will have to continue scrolling through a paragraph of text to seek their answers.

The implementation of AI isn’t a total disgrace to technology. It can certainly be useful, but only if it is designed properly. Google’s use of AI isn’t the worst example, nor is it the best. There is always room for improvement. 

Users will just have to wait and see if the tech company refines their search engine in the coming months and years.