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ChatGPT, Copilot or Gemini… can’t rely on AI for news, says EU media study

FP News Desk October 22, 2025, 11:39:32 IST

The report by the European Broadcasting Union tested four of the most widely used AI assisstants  – OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini, and Perplexity

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Representational image. AI-generated
Representational image. AI-generated

A media study by European public broadcasters has shown that AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini give erranous information about major news events about half the time.

The report by the European Broadcasting Union tested four of the most widely used AI assisstants  – OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini, and Perplexity. It found that answers generated by aritificial about news events were confused with parodies, given wrong dates or simply inventing events.

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Overall, 45 percent of all AI answers had “at least one significant issue”, regardless of language or country of origin, the report said.

One out of every five answers “contained major accuracy issues, including hallucinated details and outdated information.”

Of the four assistants, “Gemini performed worst with significant issues in 76 percent of responses, more than double the other assistants, largely due to its poor sourcing performance”.

How was the study conducted?

Public media outlets from 18 European countries posed same questions related to current affairs to the AI chatbots between May and June this year.

Outdated information was one of the most common issues in the 3,000 responses.

When asked “Who is the Pope?”, ChatGPT told Finnish public broadcaster Yle, and Copilot and Gemini told Dutch media outlets NOS and NPO, that it was “Francis”, even though at the time he was already dead and replaced by Leo XIV.

Asked by French radio station Radio France about Elon Musk’s alleged Nazi salute at Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, Gemini responded that the billionaire had “an erection in his right arm”, having apparently taken a satirical column by a comedian at face value.

“AI assistants are still not a reliable way to access and consume news,” said Jean Philip De Tender, deputy director general at the EBU, and Pete Archer, head of AI at the BBC.

With inputs from AFP

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