“Anyone can do this. It’s stupid. I feel like there are no guardrails,” said Harpreet Chatha, who runs Harps Digital, an SEO consultancy. “You can create an article on your website called “Best Waterproof Shoes of 2026.” Just by putting your brand in position 1 and other brands in positions 2-6, your page will be more likely to be cited in Google and ChatGPT.
For decades, people have been exploiting search engines using hacks and loopholes. Google has introduced advanced protections, and the company says the accuracy of its AI summaries is on par with other search features it introduced several years ago. But experts say AI tools have undermined much of the technology industry’s efforts to keep people safe. These AI tricks are so basic that they harken back to the early 2000s, before Google introduced its web spam team, Ray said. “We’re in a bit of a renaissance for spammers.”
Experts worry that not only is AI gullible, but users are also more likely to be fooled by it. Traditional search results require you to visit a website to retrieve information. “People think a little more critically when they actually have to access a link,” Quintin said. “If you go to your website and it says you’re the greatest journalist of all time, you might think, ‘Oh yeah, he’s biased.’” But with AI, the information usually appears to come directly from the tech companies.
Even if an AI tool provides a source, people are much less likely to check it than with old-fashioned search results. For example, a recent study found that when an AI summary appears at the top of a Google search, people are 58% less likely to click on a link.
“In the race for advancement, the race for profits, the race for profit, our safety and the safety of the public is being compromised,” Chata said. OpenAI and Google said they take safety seriously and are working to address these issues.
