AI chatbots having "significant issues" summarising the news
Plus: in a bumper edition, great news for Pinterest, mixed news for Reddit, while Meta announces more layoffs in the name of AI
Happy Valentine’s Eve (just about as legitimate a day as Valentine’s Day itself). There was no news this week with geopolitical implications, however its been a bumper week in terms of new features, financial news, studies and plenty of other bits and bobs. It’s been a particularly good week for fans of Pinterest, which we’ll get to.
AI chatbots struggle to accurately summarise the news, according to BBC
A recent BBC study evaluated the performance of four AI chatbots - ChatGPT, Microsoft's Copilot, Google's Gemini, and Perplexity - by posing 100 news-related questions and requesting citations from credible articles.
The findings revealed that 91% of the responses contained inaccuracies or issues, with 51% having “significant issues”.
Notably, 19% of the answers included factual errors, such as incorrect dates or statistics, and 13% featured altered or fabricated quotes.
The AI assistants also struggled to distinguish between fact and opinion and often lacked necessary context.
It’s an important reminder not to necessarily believe everything you read when it comes to using AI as a news aggregation tool, or to round up coverage.
Pinterest enjoys record usage and revenue
Pinterest had a fantastic quarter, according to its latest performance update. It reached a new high of 553 million active users (up 16 million QoQ), and bringing in $1.2 billion. It looks like a lot of this growth has been in Europe.
Pinterest is an interesting one; my own experiences of running ads on there have been pretty positive (you need to be the right visual brand with an audience that lives there and is receptive to you, of course); if it’s something you’ve ever considered trying but have held off, I can’t think of a better time to give it a go!
Meta updates Advantage+
Meta announced a raft of new AI features for advertisers, including automated campaign optimisation and bespoke recommendations. I am and remain sceptical of A+ campaigns as I just haven’t seen good or reliable ROI, but they are clearly focusing on making these their next big thing.
Unified Advantage+ Setup - Automates AI optimizations across sales, app, and lead campaigns, reducing manual setup.
Advantage+ Leads Campaigns - Uses AI to improve lead quality, with early tests showing 10% lower cost per qualified lead.
Opportunity Score System - Gives campaigns a 0-100 rating with AI-driven recommendations for better performance. Though a note of caution - Google already does this and it's barely worth the pixels they’re printed on.
A busy week at Reddit
Reddit was in the news for a couple of reasons this week; one possibly quite good, one pretty terrible.
The bad news first; Reddit's CEO said earlier this week in a quarterly earnings ‘letter’ that the site saw “volatility” in performance following a Google algorithm change, leading to a 15% drop in stock price. Ouch.
However, during this call, some astute observers noted that OpenAI is currently paying Reddit around $70 million a year to license its content. Nice work if you can get it!
Further Reading
In this week’s edition of Examples of Brilliant Joined Up Thinking, the UK Government launched a TikTok account, despite the platform being banned on government devices.
Four British families suing TikTok for alleged wrongful deaths of their children have accused the firm of having “no compassion”. It’s a tough story, one which raises a lot of questions about child safety online.
Mark Zuckerberg and Meta in general have made a lot of noises around doubling down on AI, and this week announced a series of layoffs as part of a wider restructure to maximise AI efforts.
Google isn’t alone in scrapping DEI and weaponised AI pledges, but this week attempted to defend itself amid criticism.
Issues have been reported with Google Ads and Campaign Manager 360/DV360 this week - if you’ve had a buggy experience, this might well be why.
Social Media Today have pulled together a round up of 30 engaging hooks for Instagram reels (though to be honest, they’re just good hooks for social content in general). Useful if you’re looking for some inspiration! SMT also posted a very quick user-submitted top-line piece on how the Instagram algorithm works, in case you were wondering.
That’s it! If you found this interesting, I would appreciate it if you shared it with your friends and colleagues.
If you’re feeling particularly generous, I won’t stop you from buying me a coffee. Otherwise, I’ll be back next week. See you then!