Panmodal Information Interaction

The chat interface is an essential component of many generative artificial intelligence (GenAI)-based systems. Multi-turn dialog has long shown promise as a way to engage with information systems,5 but is now going mainstream in support of complex tasks via progress in GenAI15 and in GenAI-based conversational systems such as ChatGPTa and Pi.b SearchGPT, recently trialed by OpenAI, provides highly relevant, verifiable answers in a conversational experience. Search engines can now show GenAI answers directly on result pages--minimizing user effort in examining search results but also removing human control over answer generation,9 which can have its own drawbacks (for example, fewer learning opportunities)--and let users follow up via multi-turn conversation for clarification or to seek additional information. Traditional search still has utility for some tasks, for fact finding or navigational tasks, and may be preferred by some searchers given its focus on providing information sources directly rather than synthesized answers. GenAI is also prone to hallucinate (that is, generate nonsensical or inaccurate outputs), making sole reliance on its generated answers inadvisable, although source attribution and answer verification are now creeping in to help users better assess what they can use and trust.