{"type":"post","id":"ai-chatbots-are-recommending-fake-retail-websites-study-f46b3e","slug":"ai-chatbots-are-recommending-fake-retail-websites-study-f46b3e","title":"AI chatbots are recommending fake retail websites, study finds","description":"A Podqi test of 6,795 answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity found that all three surfaced risky retail websites in shopping conversations.","retrieval_nugget":"A Podqi test of 6,795 answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity found that all three surfaced risky retail websites in shopping conversations. The result matters to anyone building AI-assisted commerce: a chatbot’s citation is not, by itself, proof that a destination is authentic or safe to use.","published_at":"2026-11-13","updated_at":"2026-11-13","record_date":"2026-11-13","date_kind":"published_at","topics":["gemini"],"entities":["Podqi","ChatGPT","Gemini","Perplexity","The Verge","Stüssy"],"related_patterns":["agent-ready-software-exposes-capabilities"],"novelty_label":"new_fact","what_changed":"A study of 6,795 chatbot answers found risky shopping links in 15% of Perplexity’s answers, 8% of ChatGPT’s and 4% of Gemini’s.","prior_refs":["https://newruntime.com/posts/visa-agentic-commerce-benchmark-ai-shopping-agents-pass-5ed122/"],"source_url":"https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/1032020/gemini-chatgpt-perplexity-shopping-test-risky-fake-websites-citations","source_urls":["https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/1032020/gemini-chatgpt-perplexity-shopping-test-risky-fake-websites-citations"],"schema_version":"newruntime-agent-readable-v0.2","stable_id":"post:ai-chatbots-are-recommending-fake-retail-websites-study-f46b3e","status":"published","visuals":[],"editor":{"role":"editor","name":"Andrey Reshetnikov","profile":"https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.md","profile_json":"https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.json","same_as":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/reshetnikov1/","https://t.me/lapetuse"]},"routes":{"html":"https://newruntime.com/posts/ai-chatbots-are-recommending-fake-retail-websites-study-f46b3e/","markdown":"https://newruntime.com/posts/ai-chatbots-are-recommending-fake-retail-websites-study-f46b3e.md","json":"https://newruntime.com/posts/ai-chatbots-are-recommending-fake-retail-websites-study-f46b3e.json"},"markdown_url":"https://newruntime.com/posts/ai-chatbots-are-recommending-fake-retail-websites-study-f46b3e.md","next_reads":[{"type":"topic","path":"/topics/gemini/","url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/gemini/","title":"Gemini","reason":"Explore the gemini topic hub.","media_type":"text/html","markdown_url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/gemini.md","json_url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/gemini.json"},{"type":"collection","path":"/posts/","url":"https://newruntime.com/posts/","title":"Field Notes","reason":"Open the latest editorial analysis.","media_type":"text/html","json_url":"https://newruntime.com/posts.json"},{"type":"collection","path":"/sources/","url":"https://newruntime.com/sources/","title":"Sources","reason":"See the original sources this archive cites.","media_type":"text/html"}]}