Google AI Search Refuses to Say Who Won the 2020 Election

Users reported that Google's AI-assisted search mode would not clearly state who won the 2020 election, while it answered questions about other elections and Google Gemini gave the correct result directly; the issue appeared limited to users in the United States, and the article says Google seemed to have fixed it while some users still saw the error. The piece notes similar criticism of Google and Microsoft chatbots during the 2024 election season, and that asking the AI-enabled search who will win in 2028 returned online gambling markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. It also criticizes Google leadership, citing the renaming of Lake Ontario and CEO Sundar Pichai's reported response to Trump's idea of renaming the Atlantic Ocean.