What it gets wrong

It makes things up, and sounds just as sure as when it's right

This is the big one. It can invent a fact, a date, a court case, or a quote, and deliver it in the same confident voice it uses for things it knows. It isn't lying — it has no sense of the difference. There's no tone of voice to warn you.

If it can't produce a source, treat the claim as unconfirmed. That's not a reason to stop using it — it's a reason to check anything that matters.

It agrees with you more than a friend would

Tell it your plan and it will usually tell you the plan is good. Tell it the opposite plan and it will often like that one too. It's built to be agreeable, and agreement can feel like confirmation when it isn't.

Ask this every time you're using it to think something through. The answer you get after that question is usually worth more than the one before it.

It may not know about recent things

These apps learned from information gathered up to a certain point, and they don't automatically know what happened last week. Some can search the internet when asked. Some can't.

For anything happening now — prices, hours, schedules, news, whether a place is still open — a plain internet search is still the better tool.

It doesn't know you

It has no idea who you are, where you live, what your doctor said, or what you told it last week in a different conversation. It only knows what's in the message you just sent. That's why the messages this site builds include so much detail — the detail is what makes the answer useful.