Study finds ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity recommend fake retail websites

A study by IP protection firm Podqi found that ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity all cited or displayed risky retail websites, defined as fake storefronts, reregistered old brand domains or dead sites, in answers to shopping questions about 151 brands. Across 6,795 answers collected in two September testing periods, Perplexity surfaced risky sites in 15 percent of responses, ChatGPT in 8 percent and Gemini in 4 percent, while ChatGPT warned about the risky site it surfaced 24 percent of the time. Queries about smaller brands produced risky sites about twice as often as those about larger companies, and prompts about regional brand websites triggered them more frequently, with Perplexity once naming the wrong page as Stüssy's official site.