Lost in the Middle
Lost in the middle is a pattern researchers found in AI language tools: they use information best when it sits at the start or end of a long text, and do much worse when it sits in the middle. Nelson Liu and colleagues named it in a 2023 paper, and it held even for tools built for long texts.
Source: Liu and others, Lost in the Middle: How Language Models Use Long Contexts (arXiv 2023; TACL 2024), checked October 29, 2026
What Lost in the Middle means for your business
The researchers gave AI tools a stack of documents, asked a question that one of them answered, and moved that document to different spots in the stack. The paper tested tools from 2023, so we'd treat it as a reason to be careful, not a rule about ChatGPT or Google today.
We know of no AI search company that says this is how it reads a web page. The advice it points to is advice we'd give anyway. Put the answer near the top of the page and near the top of each section, so it's easy to find wherever a tool or a reader starts. Don't tuck your prices, service area or hours into the middle of a long paragraph.
If the facts buyers ask about sit halfway down long pages, moving answers up where they're easy to find and quote is one of the first edits we'd make.
Last reviewed October 29, 2026. All terms
How AI answers it today
On October 29, 2026, both gave the AI research meaning. Google's AI Overview cited the paper's journal page alongside YouTube explainers, Medium posts and an Instagram reel. ChatGPT named the paper and its lead author but linked nothing.
Our run through ChatGPT and Google's AI Overview, October 29, 2026. A sample, not what every buyer sees.
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