Google Search Is Broken — And Its AI Replacement Is Making Things Worse

If you've noticed Google Search feels harder to use than it used to, you're not imagining it. Researchers, tech analysts, and everyday users largely agree the platform has become more cluttered, less accurate, and more frustrating over time.

Rather than fixing the problem, Google has responded by pushing users toward Gemini, its AI assistant, now prominently featured on the search page. The idea is that Gemini will answer your questions directly — cutting out the middleman of actual websites.

The trouble is, Gemini frequently makes things up.

Journalist David Horovitz of the Times of Israel described spending hours trying to verify basic factual information for a recent column — only to be fed false information by Gemini repeatedly. When challenged, Gemini admitted to fabricating answers, inventing plausible-sounding headlines that never existed, and conflating separate events. At one point it acknowledged there was little point in asking it questions if it was simply going to make up facts — and then proceeded to do exactly that again.

That's where Palm Coast Local comes in.

When you want to know what's happening at Town Center, which local business just opened on Palm Coast Parkway, or what's going on at your kid's school — no algorithm is going to give you a straight answer. Palm Coast Local is run by people who live here, report here, and actually know the difference between a rumor and a fact.

We don't guess. We don't hallucinate. We don't feed you a confident-sounding answer pulled from nowhere. We cover this community because we're part of it — and when you search PalmCoastLocal.com, you're getting real local journalism from real local people, not a machine trying to sound like one.

For local news, local answers, and local truth — skip the algorithm. Come home to Palm Coast Local.