New research shows Google AI Overviews surface negative sentiment about brands 2.3% of the time, 44% more frequently than ChatGPT. If your brand has unresolved complaints or negative reviews, AI search is now amplifying them.
You cannot control what AI says about your brand. But you can control how much negative material it has to draw from.
New research has found that Google AI Overviews surface negative sentiment about brands in 2.3% of brand-related mentions. That might sound small. But it is 44% more frequently than ChatGPT surfaces negative brand sentiment, and the difference matters because of where it appears: at the top of Google, before any organic result.
The study analysed thousands of AI-generated responses across both platforms. Google's AI Overviews were consistently more likely to pull in negative reviews, complaint threads and critical commentary when summarising a brand. The researchers attributed this to Google's broader crawl of review sites, forums and complaint platforms, which gives its AI more negative source material to draw from.
ChatGPT, by contrast, tends to present brands more neutrally, drawing from a narrower set of training data that skews toward company websites and general knowledge rather than review aggregators.
Why it matters
For Australian businesses, this means your reputation management strategy now has an AI layer. Unresolved Google reviews, complaint threads on ProductReview.com.au and negative forum mentions are not just visible to users who go looking for them. They are being surfaced proactively by Google's AI at the top of search results for anyone researching your brand.
More likely: Google AI Overviews surface negative brand sentiment compared to ChatGPT
The 2.3% figure is an average. For brands with significant complaint volumes or unresolved negative reviews, the percentage will be higher. And because AI Overviews appear before organic results, users encounter the negative sentiment before they see your website, your case studies or your carefully crafted messaging.
What to do about it
Search your brand name in Google with AI Overviews enabled. Read what it says about you. Then search your brand on ChatGPT and Perplexity. Compare the three. If negative sentiment appears in any of them, trace it back to the source. Respond to unresolved reviews. Address complaint threads. Create positive content that gives AI tools better material to work with. The brands that manage their AI reputation now will compound the advantage as AI search usage grows.