Autism-Related Information on Websites and General-Purpose Artificial Intelligence Chatbots: Comparative, Bilingual...

Parents increasingly consult the internet, both websites and, more recently, artificial intelligence chatbots, for information on autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the comparative quality of these two source types, especially across languages, remains underexplored.

This study aimed to assess the completeness and accuracy of ASD information delivered by websites and 5 popular artificial intelligence chatbots and determine whether performance differs between English and Romanian content.

In a cross-sectional design, 25 English-language and 25 Romanian-language websites and the responses of ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, and DeepSeek were evaluated. Content was benchmarked against a 24-item checklist, yielding completeness and accuracy scores. Chatbots were tested in 2 scenarios: a single broad query (A) and 24 item-specific queries (B).

Websites achieved higher completeness in English than in Romanian (6.9 vs 5.1; P=.007) and marginally higher accuracy (6.9 vs 6.1; P=.045). In scenario A, chatbot completeness (English: 5.3 vs Romanian: 6.2; P=.15) and accuracy (English: 6.0 vs Romanian: 5.6; P=.32) did not show significant differences by language. In the single-query scenario, websites showed higher accuracy than chatbots in both English (6.9 vs 6.0; P=.19) and Romanian (6.1 vs 5.6; P=.53), with neither difference reaching statistical significance. Conversely, item-specific questioning favored chatbots, which yielded higher accuracy scores than websites in English (8.3 vs 6.9; P=.053) and Romanian (8.0 vs 6.1; P=.007). Accuracy scores improved significantly from the single-query to the item-specific scenario (English: 6.0 vs 8.3; P=.002; Romanian: 5.6 vs 8.0; P=.001). While an initial analysis suggested variation in performance between chatbots (repeated measures ANOVA; P=.005), pairwise differences between individual models did not remain significant after adjustment for multiple testing.

This exploratory study indicates that the quality of online ASD information varies by language and source context. English-language websites are more complete than Romanian-language websites. Among chatbots, targeted questioning yields more accurate answers than single broad queries in both languages. The findings should be interpreted cautiously due to the temporal gap between website and chatbot data collection.