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arXiv · 2602.13415

The Rise of AI Search: Implications for Information Markets and Human Judgement at Scale

Sinan Aral·Haiwen Li·Rui Zuo
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Abstract

We executed 24,000 search queries in 243 countries, generating 2.8 million AI and traditional search results in 2024 and 2025. We found a rapid global expansion of AI search and key trends that reflect important, previously hidden, policy decisions by AI companies that impact human exposure to AI search worldwide. From 2024 to 2025, overall exposure to Google AI Overviews (AIO) expanded from 7 to 229 countries, with surprising exclusions like France, Turkey, China and Cuba, which do not receive AI search results, even today. While only 1% of Covid search queries were answered by AI in 2024, over 66% of Covid queries were answered by AI in 2025 -- a 5600% increase signaling a clear policy shift on this critical health topic. Our results also show AI search surfaces significantly fewer long tail information sources, lower response variety, and significantly more low credibility and right- and center-leaning information sources, compared to traditional search, impacting the economic incentives to produce new information, market concentration in information production, and human judgment and decision-making at scale. The social and economic implications of these rapid changes in our information ecosystem necessitate a global debate about corporate and governmental policy related to AI search.

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Sinan Aral, Haiwen Li, Rui Zuo. 2026-02-18. The Rise of AI Search: Implications for Information Markets and Human Judgement at Scale. https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.13415

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