Retrieved but Not Read: Understanding Why Search-Augmented LLMs Fail to Use Available Evidence

Owen Walters, Lihu Chen, Francesca Toni

Web search allows LLMs to access up-to-date information, but it remains unclear why they sometimes produce outdated answers even when relevant evidence is available. To study this problem, we construct temporal facts whose values changed after the models' training cutoffs. We evaluate one proprietary model under deployed web search and six open-weight model configurations under controlled retrieval. We find that models often answer from search snippets without opening the source pages, which is associated with higher rates of outdated answers and unfaithful citations. Our controlled experiments and layer-wise analysis reveal a gap between the availability of evidence and its effective use. Even when retrieved evidence influences internal predictions, models may still favour outdated information in their final answers. We hope these findings will help advance research on the reliable use of retrieved evidence in search-augmented LLMs.