NewsGuard: AI Chatbots Cite Partisan Sites in 48% of Answers

A NewsGuard audit found that seven leading AI chatbots cited partisan sites posing as independent local news outlets in 48.2% of responses about US midterm candidates and issues. ChatGPT led at 70.8%, followed by Copilot and Perplexity at 54.2%, Claude at 50%, Gemini at 41.7%, Meta AI at 37.5% and Grok at 29.2%.

• In 7.7% of responses, partisan sites were the only sources cited
• Left-leaning sites were cited three times more often: 36.3% vs 11.9%
• Only 1 of 168 responses flagged the source's partisan nature
• ChatGPT cited such sites in 70.8% of answers, Grok in 29.2%