Time to switch to Bing? Searching for words like ‘disregard’ or ‘ignore’ breaks AI Overviews in Google Search

• Google Search is having problems with certain search words
• It seems the AI Overviews treat these words like commands
• One of the words causing problems for users is “disregard”

Just a few days ago, Google unveiled a whole host of updates that will effectively turn its famous search engine into an AI bot interface, but it looks like there are going to be some glitches along the way: searches for words like “disregard” or “ignore” are currently breaking AI Overviews in Google search.

As spotted by reporter Thomas Maxwell and others (via Android Police), typing these words returns a lot of blank space at the top of the screen, with the regular blue link search results appearing some way down the page.

What’s missing is the AI summary that now appears at the top of most results search pages on Google. It appears the AI is getting confused, and thinks that these words are being issued as commands rather than search queries.

Indeed, the screenshot shared by Maxwell shows Google saying “No problem. Consider the prompt null and void.” It has effectively disregarded the search for “disregard”, rather than showing the definition of the word like it should be doing.

Our AI search future

No doubt Google will iron out this bug before too long, but it’s a reminder that AI can and will make mistakes — as Google will tell you every time you get answers inside the Gemini AI app (in very small text at the bottom of the screen).

You don’t have to look far online to find some pretty negative reactions to Google’s AI fail, and it seems that there are a significant number of users who’d rather stick to the old way of searching the web, without all the added AI.

For Google though, this is the future. It knows its search business is under threat if people start to use AI chatbots like ChatGPT to find all their information, so it wants to get ahead of the competition with AI offerings of its own.

If you want to stick to the old way of browsing the web — and perhaps give more support to writers and publishers along the way — then search engine alternatives such as DuckDuckGo and Kagi are available, and there’s always Bing too. These portals have AI features of their own, but they’re not quite as prominent as Google’s.

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Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you’ll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.