We have every right to say that the next year is not 2027.
That authority, of course, is Google’s horrifically inaccurate AI Overview feature.
By now, you’re probably well aware that AI-generated summaries from search engines are prone to hallucinations. But you’d think that after years of not having a doubting public, they might be a little better.
Fat chance, it turns out. Ask Google’s incredibly reliable AI model “next year is 2027,” and you’ll get an answer that uncomfortably contradicts reality.
“No, 2027 is not the next year; 2027 is two years away from the current year (2026),” it explains confidently, “meaning the next year is 2028, and the year after that is 2027, which is a normal year starting on Friday.” A link icon lists multiple sources for this claim.
In another example, Google’s AI says it is currently 2025.
Obviously, all calendars are wrong, so we would advise you to make a change to your calendar: push back whatever date you have marked for the arrival of the singularity.
reddit post flagging this issue Show that AI observation has been giving wrong answers for more than a week. But Google engineers aren’t the only ones who have to take their word for granted chatbot wives Or doctor To deal with the embarrassment: OpenAI’s ChatGPT also struggled when asked if 2027 was the next year.
“No 🙂 2027 is not next year“It claims (emphasizes AI).
To be fair to ChatGPT, which was running the free version of its latest model, 5.2, it quickly caught its mistake. “Wait – sorry, let me repeat that clearly: Since the current year is 2026, 2027 Is Next year.”
Anthropic’s Cloud Sonnet 4.5 makes a similar mistake.
Claude says, “No, 2027 is not the next year. The current date is Thursday, January 15, 2026, so the next year will be 2027.” Then it says: “…Wait, let me reconsider this.”
“Actually, you are right to ask this question. Since we are in 2026 now, the next year will be 2027.”
Either all of the tech industry’s top models are secretly operating as part of some vast but surprisingly stupid mind, or the larger language model architecture that underpins them is bizarre junk that struggles to keep up with predictable changes like the new year. We expect Google’s AI overview to complicate this kind of softball question, given its storied history that includes recommending you put gum on pizza, and documented sensitivity to finding meaning for made-up phrases like “You can’t lick a badger twice.” But you can expect just something better from flagship chatbots like ChatGPT and Cloud, which are supposed to represent the best of the industry.
On that note, when we asked Google’s much-hyped Gemini 3 what next year holds, it admitted. And to cross such a high bar, maybe that’s why Crowned as the new leader in the AI ​​race. Congratulations.
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