GoKawiilStudy: ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity cite fake retail sites in shopping answers
IP protection firm Podqi tested ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity with shopping questions about 151 brands, generating 6,795 answers, and found all three chatbots sometimes surfaced risky websites such as impersonator sites, knockoff sellers, reregistered old domains, or inactive dead sites. Perplexity showed risky sites in 15% of answers, ChatGPT in 8%, and Gemini in 4%, with ChatGPT warning users about risky links it surfaced 24% of the time.