Google
Gemini Often Won't Search the Web — and Won't Tell You It Didn't
Ask Gemini something that needs today's web and it will often answer confidently from stale training data without ever searching — and without telling you. Google's runtime decides per question whether Gemini even gets its search tool, and a leaked system prompt spells out the line that tells it not to look. Here's the mechanism, and how to force a real search.