You can distinguish these AI-titled stories in a couple of ways. At the top of the card for a trending topic, rather than a single outlet’s icon and name, you’ll see up to three icons with text reading something like Android Authority +11. Trending topics also lack the Follow button that cards for a single outlet’s work feature in the top right corner.
Tapping a trending topic’s Frankensteined AI title opens an AI-generated summary, and tapping the Outlet +X text at the top of the card takes you to a list of individual stories, complete with their intended headlines. But tapping the large featured image — which, again, is pulled from whichever outlet’s name appears first at the top of the card — takes you directly to that outlet’s content.
Ideally, Discover wouldn’t be summarizing the news using AI at all — the tech has repeatedly been shown to be unreliable when it comes to understanding and relaying news stories. Judging by Google’s statements to The Verge, though, this behavior has graduated from a small experiment to long-term feature; the company is committed to the bit for the foreseeable future. If you’re getting your news from Discover, be extra sure to watch out for AI-generated misinformation.
