{"id":297873,"date":"2025-11-17T22:17:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T22:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/297873\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T22:17:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T22:17:19","slug":"googles-ai-overview-says-call-of-duty-black-ops-7-is-a-fake-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/297873\/","title":{"rendered":"Google’s AI Overview says ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 7’ is a fake game"},"content":{"rendered":"

At this point, it should be clear that anything you read from Google\u2019s AI Overview needs to be taken with a grain of salt<\/a> \u2014 including when it starts labeling real video games as fictional. Case in point: Call of Duty: Black Ops 7.<\/p>\n

For the past few months, searching “Black Ops 7” on Google has returned a bizarre response from the search engine\u2019s Gemini-powered AI Overview, which insists the game doesn\u2019t exist. “Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is a fictional video game that does not exist,” the AI claims. It even elaborates: “The search results describe a hypothetical game with a November 14, 2025, release date, a story set in 2035 that continues the narrative from Black Ops 2 and Black Ops… The fictional game includes co-op campaign, multiplayer, and a Zombies mode.”<\/p>\n

\"AI<\/p>\n

Credit: Screenshot: Google\n <\/p>\n

What makes the situation even stranger is that everything the AI lists \u2014 from the release date to the 2035 setting to the available modes \u2014 is actually true. Yet it still labels the game as “fictional.” Black Ops 7 is the 22nd mainline entry in the Call of Duty franchise and the eighth installment in the Black Ops universe. Right now, it\u2019s sitting at a grim 1.8 user score on Metacritic<\/a>, with players voicing frustration over a disappointing single-player campaign and the blatant use of generative AI<\/a> for core assets throughout the game.<\/p>\n

The issue was first spotted about three months ago by a Reddit user in the r\/google subreddit<\/a>. As of Nov. 13 \u2014 the day before the game\u2019s release \u2014 I was able to replicate the same problem multiple times, and it\u2019s still happening as of this writing. Interestingly, the glitch appears to be limited to mobile devices and AI Overviews; Google’s AI mode correctly recognizes that Black Ops 7 is real. Mashable reached out to both Google and Activision-Blizzard, but have not yet received a comment from either. <\/p>\n

\n Mashable Light Speed\n <\/p>\n

What’s happening with AI Overviews is a small but telling example of a much larger problem: Big Tech\u2019s AI systems still struggle to keep up with real-time information, especially around breaking news or newly released media.<\/p>\n

AI Overviews has no trouble recognizing the release and existence of other games that launched around the same time as Black Ops 7. For example, it correctly tells me that Yakuza Kiwami 2 received a Switch 2 release this month. But in the same breath, it completely fumbles Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero \u2014 first labeling it as a mobile game, then immediately correcting itself and saying it isn\u2019t, all while failing to mention that it also just launched on Switch and Switch 2.<\/p>\n

\"AI<\/p>\n

Credit: Screenshot: Google\n <\/p>\n

As Mashable’s Chase DiBenedetto has reported before<\/a>, “While AI assistants may be helpful for simple daily tasks… their weakness at reporting news is a liability for everyone, according to watchdogs and media leaders alike.” And while this current glitch may only involve a video game, it highlights the same broader issue. <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve already seen how easily AI chatbots can spread or reinforce misinformation in far more serious contexts \u2014 like Grok’s viral claim<\/a> that the Charlie Kirk shooting was a hoax. As more people rely on AI tools as on-demand fact-checkers<\/a>, especially during highly volatile events, these inaccuracies could be seen as a danger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At this point, it should be clear that anything you read from Google\u2019s AI Overview needs to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-297873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}