Google’s AI search is so broken it can ‘disregard’ what you’re looking for

Google's AI Overviews are malfunctioning by producing chatbot-like responses instead of standard search summaries when users search for terms like "disregard," "ignore," or "skip." For example, searching "disregard" triggers a reply such as "Got it! Let me know if you need help with anything else," while "ignore" yields a message offering to help with a specific topic. Google has not commented on the issue, but it is likely a temporary bug.

Google’s AI Overviews are running into an interesting problem right now. As of this writing, if you search for the term “disregard,” instead of showing the usual AI-generated summary of search results, the AI Overview section instead includes a response like what you’d see from a more traditional AI chatbot, as called out by a post on X. Google’s AI search is so broken it can ‘disregard’ what you’re looking for With certain terms, AI Overviews are drawing a blank. With certain terms, AI Overviews are drawing a blank. To one Verge colleague searching “disregard”: Got it Let me know if you need help with anything else. Nothing else followed in the AI Overview portion of the results page. To me, initially: No problem at all How can I help you today? I searched for “disregard” again later and got another response, which you can see in the image at the top of this post. AI Overviews aren’t just tripping up over the word “disregard.” When searching for “ignore,” Google’s AI Overview section showed the following message to a Verge colleague: Message received I’m here and ready to help. What would you like to focus on today? Just let me know if there’s a specific topic, task, or question you’d like to explore. When they searched “skip,” the AI Overview section said: It looks like your message was just a test or a typo Feel free to ask a question, share a prompt, or let me know how I can help you with your tasks today. I’m ready whenever you are Google didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment about what’s going on. However, this is almost certainly just some kind of funny bug. Maybe Google Search itself is tired after everything that happened at Google I/O.