Generative AI
Generative AI is AI that makes new content, like text, pictures, music or video. Google's machine learning glossary says the field has no formal definition, but lists three things the content should be: complex, coherent and original. Large language models, the kind of AI behind ChatGPT, are one example. Image, audio and video generators are others.
Source: Google for Developers, Machine Learning Glossary: generative AI (updated April 10, 2026), checked October 29, 2026
What Generative AI means for your business
You might use generative AI to draft emails or posts. Your buyers use it to ask which local company to call, and the answer is written for that question. Our LLM entry covers how that writing works and where it goes wrong.
Buyers also meet generative AI inside Google Search. Google's guide for site owners says AI Overviews and AI Mode give an AI-written response with links to supporting websites, and that both may run several related searches across subtopics to build it.
So we'd treat generative AI in search as one more place your business can be named or left out, and check both the answer and the links beside it.
If you'd like to know how AI answers describe your business right now, finding out what they say about you is where we'd start.
Last reviewed October 29, 2026. All terms
How AI answers it today
On October 29, 2026, Google's AI Overview cited IBM, Stanford, MIT, Microsoft, Red Hat and YouTube, and listed risks like made-up facts. ChatGPT gave a similar plain answer with a list of tools, cited nothing, and said answers from generative AI should be checked.
Our run through ChatGPT and Google's AI Overview, October 29, 2026. A sample, not what every buyer sees.
Related terms in crawlers and technical access
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