Abstract
<p>AI-generated overviews (AIOs) increasingly appear at the top of search result pages, making them the first, and potentially only, content users encounter during search. Despite their widespread adoption, their impact on information seeking, processing, and downstream attitudes remains critically underexplored. Across two preregistered experiments (N = 2,797), we randomly assigned participants to view AIOs on one of four contested topics manipulated to be attitude-congruent, attitude-incongruent, or balanced (only Study 2) relative to their prior attitudes. Participants who viewed an AIO, irrespective of content, were significantly less likely to engage with subsequent search results than control (no AIO). Participants perceived attitude-incongruent AIOs as more biased and weaker than attitude-congruent AIOs. Despite this, attitude-incongruent AIOs reduced attitude polarization relative to attitude-congruent AIOs in Study 1, but not in Study 2 (although directionally consistent). Taken together, these findings suggest that AIOs significantly influence information seeking and processing and raise critical concerns for democratic deliberation.</p>