Google’s AI-powered Search overhaul is facing fresh ridicule after users discovered hilariously wrong spelling answers from AI Overviews. From misspelling “journalism” to struggling with simple letter counts, the feature has sparked debate over whether AI is making Search smarter, or simply making basic internet tasks far more complicated than necessary today.
Google’s ambitious AI makeover for Search is once again attracting attention for all the wrong reasons. Only this time, the controversy is not about recommending glue on pizza or suggesting people eat rocks. Instead,
Google’s AI Overview appears to be losing a battle against basic spelling.
Social media users this week began posting screenshots of Google’s AI-generated responses confidently giving incorrect answers to questions that most schoolchildren could solve without difficulty. Ask how many “p” letters appear in the word Google, and the AI reportedly says two. Ask how many “d” letters are in journalism, and the system somehow invents a new spelling entirely.
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Google is revamping its entire search engine to this btw pic.twitter.com/PIR4llFhiV
— mersomas (@mersomas) May 27, 2026
The bizarre responses have quickly become internet comedy material, but they have also reignited larger concerns about Google’s growing reliance on generative AI inside Search, particularly for tasks that were already simple and reliable before artificial intelligence entered the picture.
Google AI Overview has a spelling problem
Among the more widely shared examples online was Google’s AI Overview incorrectly spelling the word journalism as “j-o-u-r-n-a-d-i-s-m” while simultaneously claiming the word contains two “d” letters. In another case, it correctly identified that there is one “p” in the surname of the US president, only to spell it as “t-r-p-u-m”.
Of course, everyone sharing that viral screenshot of Google’s AI Overview claiming there are two L’s in Google is conveniently cropping out the source.
The AI is actually quoting a specific article from 2009 about Google’s 11th birthday doodle «Goog11e». But I guess it’s much… https://t.co/jwPglNEFz0 pic.twitter.com/IPUjfKa8sm
— Moll (@Moleh1ll) May 26, 2026
Google acknowledged the issue, saying that counting letters within words remains a known challenge for large language models, or LLMs, the technology powering modern AI chatbots and text generators.
The limitation is not exactly new. For years, users have tested AI systems with deceptively simple questions like how many “r” letters appear in strawberry, often producing wildly incorrect answers. Ironically, the same AI systems capable of writing software code or solving advanced scientific problems still struggle with tasks that rely on precise spelling and character recognition.
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Apparently this isn’t even a meme anymore 🙂
Google AI Overview says “Google” has 2 i’s. pic.twitter.com/PzFvGi6Asf
— Shauvik Kumar (@shauvikkumar) May 27, 2026
The reason lies in how these models process language. Unlike humans, AI does not “read” words letter by letter. Instead, most systems break text into tokens, which may represent syllables, fragments or entire words. The AI then converts those tokens into numerical patterns rather than understanding spelling in a traditional sense.
Google AI Overview has another issue
The spelling chaos arrives alongside another
awkward AI Overview moment involving the word “disregard”. Users searching the term were greeted not with a straightforward dictionary definition, but with what looked suspiciously like an AI chatbot response.
Instead of explaining the meaning of the word, the AI displayed: “Understood. Let me know whenever you have a new prompt or question!”
And there is more. Google AI worked more like a conversational model with simple words like ‘Forget’, ‘Ignore’, ‘Stop’ and more.
Meme: Google forgot how to define words
If something sounds like a command, the AI Overview tries to execute it first instead of explaining it
That leads to completely absurd search results
So this is what the search engine revolution looks like https://t.co/XuvUzZPxRD pic.twitter.com/Hw37AFGrKP
— Bonsai 🌳 (@bonsaixbt) May 23, 2026STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
The response quickly went viral, partly because it perfectly captured growing criticism surrounding Google’s redesigned Search experience. Many users argue that AI Overviews increasingly dominate the page while genuinely useful links are pushed further down.
For simple searches like definitions or spellings, critics say the AI layer often feels unnecessary and overcomplicated. What once took seconds through clean search results is now becoming a conversational AI interaction that not everyone asked for.
Google has already patched the “disregard” issue, but the latest spelling blunders suggest the company’s AI-first Search future may still need a spellcheck of its own.
First Published:
May 28, 2026, 10:11 IST
HomeTechGoogle AI overview can explain rocket science, but struggles to spell simple wordsEnd of Article