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Podqi study finds AI chatbots surfaced risky shopping sites in up to 15% of answers

Podqi study finds AI chatbots surfaced risky shopping sites in up to 15% of answers
Image: The Verge: AI

Across 6,795 answers about 151 brands, Perplexity showed risky sites most often and Gemini least, and smaller brands were hit about twice as often.

7:33 pm ET

Source: The Verge: AI

A study by IP protection firm Podqi, shared exclusively with The Verge, found that ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity all cited or showed risky sites when asked where to buy products from 151 brands, including Lululemon, Birkenstock, Stüssy, Le Creuset and Podqi client Madhappy. Podqi counted fake sites impersonating retailers or selling knockoffs, old brand domains reregistered by someone else, and dead sites that others could buy and reuse.

Across 6,795 answers collected over two testing periods in September, Gemini linked to or mentioned a risky site in 4% of answers, ChatGPT in 8% and Perplexity in 15%, according to the study. ChatGPT warned users about the risky sites it surfaced 24% of the time, the best of the three. Queries about larger companies returned risky sites about half as often, and prompts about regional brand websites triggered them most. In one case, Perplexity named the wrong page as Stüssy's official site. Podqi wrote its own prompts rather than using real user conversations.

Google spokesperson Jessica Levis Boord said Gemini displays source links to help people verify information. OpenAI spokesperson Taya Christianson said the company is improving safeguards to make deceptive sites less likely to appear. Perplexity spokesperson Jesse Dwyer said Perplexity is consistently the most accurate AI on credible research benchmarks and never claims to be 100% accurate.

Read the full article at The Verge: AI

Our take

If chatbots are becoming a front door for shopping, an impersonator or a reregistered old domain can take your customers and your reputation with it. Podqi sells IP protection and wrote its own prompts, so read the rates as indicative.

Ask the major chatbots where to buy your brand, including regional sites, and log what they cite before the holidays. Check whether any retired domains of yours have lapsed into someone else's hands.

Was our take useful?

Key takeaways

  1. Podqi says Perplexity showed risky sites in 15% of answers, ChatGPT 8%, Gemini 4%
  2. Larger brands drew risky sites about half as often as smaller ones, per Podqi
  3. Questions about regional brand websites surfaced risky sites most often