These days, rather than showing you the traditional list of links when you run a search query, Google is intent on throwing up AI Overviews instead: synthesized summaries of information scraped off the web, with some word-prediction magic added, and packaged together in a way to sound as accurate and reliable as possible.
We’ve written before about some of the problems with these AI Overviews, which regularly contain mistakes or nonsense, and of course rip off the work of the human writers who actually know the answers to the questions you’re putting into Google. There’s another problem though—these AI answers can actually be dangerous.
As with every other new technology through history, scams are now making their way into AI Overviews as well, apparently injecting Google’s AI answers with fraudulent phone numbers that you shouldn’t trust. Here’s what’s happening, and how you can make sure you stay safe.
How AI Overview Scams Work
Both The Washington Post and Digital Trends have spotted instances of scam support numbers showing up in Google AI Overviews, reports of which appeared on Facebook and Reddit respectively. Credit unions and banks are also warning their customers about these scams.
It doesn’t seem to be a completely new problem, but the way Google Search works now, it’s been given a new twist.
Here’s what happens: The unfortunate victim Googles a company name looking for a contact number, then calls the number thrown up by AI. This doesn’t actually lead to the company in question, but rather to someone pretending to be that company, who then tries to take payment information or other sensitive details from the caller.
It’s not clear exactly how these fake numbers are being planted, but the best guess is that they’re being published in multiple low-profile places online, alongside the names of major companies. AI Overviews then comes along and scoops them up, without running the proper checks to verify the information.
The planting of misleading phone numbers by bad actors is not a completely new danger of course; misinformation has been a part of the web for a long, long time. But the design of AI Overviews, which picks out information from the web and presents it as fact rather than encouraging you to do the research yourself, is making people much more susceptible to this kind of con.
Google says it’s actively fighting these scammers and that it’s continuing to roll out updates that make its spam-detection systems stronger. “Our anti-spam protections are highly effective at keeping scams out of AI Overviews and showing official customer support numbers where possible,” the company said in a statement to WIRED.
Of course, it’s not just happening on Google Search. Security researchers have shown how malicious text can be hidden in emails—and presumably documents as well—which is then scraped and summarized by the AI, and served up to the user who takes it as accurate and authentic. The issue is also showing up in other AI search engines.
How to Keep Yourself Safe
The advice for avoiding this kind of scam trick is simple: Don’t believe everything you read in an AI Overview, especially not when it comes to specific facts, figures, or phone numbers. Google’s AI technology is susceptible to picking up outdated or suspect information from the web as well as accurate data, and given the way the AI Overview interface is presented, it’s difficult to tell the difference.
If you’re looking for a contact phone number or something similar, run a search for the company you’re trying to get in touch with, then use the details on the company’s own website: It may be an extra click or two, but it’s worth it to make sure you’re dealing with correct contact information.
Caution is still required wherever you get your information from, though, especially when it comes to dealing with customer service representatives and discussing anything to do with payments or personal information. Ideally, you want to verify any number you call with a second Google search for it.
Google recommends this as well. The company says its recently launched a number of updates to further improve scam protections for AI Overviews specifically, but it still encourages people to double-check phone numbers by performing additional searches.
For now, there’s no way to turn off AI Overviews. If Google decides to serve them up for your query, all you can do is scroll past them, or maybe switch to a different search engine. Google may be working to remove false phone numbers from results, but we know the nature of generative AI is not to simply parrot information but to embellish it—which is inevitably going to lead to problems.
As our searches become more reliant on AI, it can mean a more natural and conversational user experience, but for some queries the old ways are the best. So for example, you might want to chat with Gemini about ideas for your next vacation. But when it comes to actually finding accurate information about hotels, cruise ships, or travel agents, maybe leave AI out of it.
The post Google’s AI Overviews Can Scam You. Here’s How to Stay Safe appeared first on Wired.
