Search engine definitions have been replaced with AI previews.
Google appears to be experiencing some issues after the company began rolling out its updated and even more AI-focused search experience at I/O 2026. Currently, searching for the words “skip,” “stop,” or “ignore” on Google no longer shows a snippet with a definition, but instead offers an AI overview and lots of blank space. Because users have complained about the problem on social media and in posts like TechCrunch And Macrumers If you’ve reported on this, even if you don’t get a definition, you can still get a collection of links to articles documenting the problem before the traditional list of links.
Several Woozad staff members were able to recreate the strange AI Overview responses with their own personal Google searches. In incognito mode, Google responded correctly once by showing its usual snippet with the definition, and failed a second time by responding again with an AI preview. Links to online dictionaries still appear below these incorrect results, but you have to scroll through an AI preview or article grid to access them.
Ian Carlos Campbell for Woozad
Woozad has reached out to Google for more information on this issue and its attempts to resolve it. We will update this article if we receive a response.
Overall, Google’s failure to automatically display a definition isn’t as bad as recommending people put glue on a pizza, one of the problems the company faced when it first launched AI previews. It could even be beneficial for Merriam-Webster’s web traffic. What the issue highlights is the awkward transition Google is currently going through, as it moves from being the ultimate referrer of other websites to becoming an all-in-one AI assistant.