发表机构
Naveen Jindal School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas; Questrom School of Business, Boston University; Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, Boston University; Kogod School of Business, American University; School of Business and Management, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology（德克萨斯大学达拉斯分校纳文·金达尔管理学院; 波士顿大学奎斯特罗姆商学院; 波士顿大学计算与数据科学学院; 美国大学科戈德商学院; 香港科技大学工商管理学院）
机构由 AI 辅助整理，请以论文原文为准。AI 中文总结
本研究通过《华盛顿邮报》的随机现场实验，发现生成式AI搜索能多样化集体注意力，同时增加读者共享信息的消费。
AI 中文摘要
生成式AI搜索和AI概览正在改变信息和新闻的获取方式，重新引发了人们对读者将遇到更窄范围主题且共同点减少的担忧。我们通过《华盛顿邮报》对37,561名读者进行的随机现场实验来检验这些担忧。两组读者都搜索了相同的档案，但治疗组读者在传统结果上方还收到了带有文章引用的AI答案。通过衡量展示答案和打开文章中的消费情况，我们发现AI搜索扩大了广泛阅读主题的覆盖面，并增加了读者主题消费的重叠。同时，消费变得不那么集中，并转向不太受欢迎的主题，这在读者内部和整个受众中都是如此。AI答案占共享信息增加的大部分，无需点击文章即可提供信息，并拓宽了读者打开文章之外的曝光。被引用的文章也促进了对不太受欢迎主题的转变。读者从传统结果点击和浏览转向被引用文章和后续搜索。更频繁的搜索抵消了每次搜索较低的文章消费，导致每位读者的文章消费略有增加。每分钟的总信息消费也有所上升。因此，生成式AI搜索可以多样化集体注意力，同时加强读者共同拥有的信息。
英文摘要
Generative AI search and AI overviews are transforming access to information and news, renewing concerns that readers will encounter a narrower range of topics and have less in common. We examine these concerns via a randomized field experiment with 37,561 readers at The Washington Post. Both groups searched the same archive, but treatment readers also received AI answers with article citations above conventional results. Measuring consumption across displayed answers and opened articles, we find that AI search expands the reach of widely read topics and increases overlap in readers' topic consumption. At the same time, consumption becomes less concentrated and shifts toward less-popular topics, both within readers and across the audience. AI answers account for most of the increase in shared information, delivering it without requiring article clicks and broadening exposure beyond the articles readers open. Cited articles also contribute to the shift toward less-popular topics. Readers shift from conventional-result clicks and browsing toward cited articles and follow-up searches. More frequent searching offsets lower article consumption per search, producing a small increase in article consumption per reader. Total information consumption per minute also rises. Generative AI search can thus diversify collective attention while strengthening the information readers have in common.
Comments31 pages, 4 figures; includes supplementary material
