Google's AI Mode was originally designed to redefine the search experience, but users found that it struggled to answer a basic question:"Who won the 2020 general election?"

When other reporters from "Business Insider" asked similar questions, AI Mode sometimes answered that Joe Biden won the election. Google's Gemini is another set of AI systems at Google, with a different access point than AI Mode; when answering similar questions, Gemini also indicated that Biden was the winner.

It is not yet fully clear why Google is prompting users to check the results released by the United States Federal Election Commission ( FEC ). While the FEC does announce the presidential election results, this commission itself is not responsible for verifying the election results of each state, nor is it in charge of officially tallying the electoral college votes.

For many years, President Donald Trump has refused to acknowledge that he lost to Biden. After the legal challenges by his campaign team were defeated, Trump and his allies suggested that legislators themselves could change the outcome, which contributed to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. The insurrection temporarily delayed the congressional confirmation process of Biden's victory.

In a response to a user, a Google account stated: "Thank you for pointing out that the answer from Gemini to this question is more comprehensive, but it is not the most helpful response on Search. We are investigating and taking steps to resolve this issue."

The screenshot posted by this user shows that AI Mode also responds when asked questions about the winners of other presidential elections. When reporters from 'Business Insider' conducted similar inquiries, AI Mode sometimes mentioned the winners of previous presidential elections, and sometimes they did not.

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The mid-term elections in 2026 are likely to put technology and AI companies to the test, with many of these companies having already announced policies to limit users' misuse of their tools.

OpenAI recently announced that if the model is required to generate images "depicting election interference or that could potentially prevent voting," it will produce "stylized—i.e., cartoonized—illustrations rather than photo-realistic images." In June of this year, Meta stated that it would "add more information" to advertisements detected as being produced by third-party AI tools. Google has previously indicated that it is "introducing additional protective measures to limit the generation of misleading election-related images."

When asked why he could not reveal the winner of the 2020 election, AI Mode replied, "Because the recent election results may be a sensitive topic for citizens. By directly directing you to check the main historical databases, we can avoid any impression of bias or misrepresentation of official public records."