When Google rolled out its generative AI button, early testers balked at hallucinations and missed facts. A year later, lead Times columnist Brian X. Chen admits he now relies on the AI Mode button for quick, task‑focused queries—identifying car parts, picking grocery brands, and surfacing scam warnings—tasks that once required multiple keyword searches.

Chen notes the technology still stumbles on straight answers; a New York Times analysis flagged roughly 10 percent of AI‑generated replies as inaccurate, translating to millions of errors across Google’s five‑trillion‑search‑a‑year volume. Google disputes the methodology but acknowledges the risk of mis‑interpreting web content, especially for niche product claims.

Despite those flaws, the AI excels when users feed it narrow prompts or images, turning a grocery‑aisle photo into a brand recommendation or a broken mirror snapshot into an ordered replacement and video tutorial. For businesses, the shift signals a new search‑assist model that could reshape ad spend, affiliate traffic, and the relevance of traditional SEO tactics.