// adversarial inputs

Source: Search Engine Journal

Prompt injection attacks—where hidden or manipulated text secretly steers AI model outputs—repurpose a two-decade-old SEO exploit that search engines once fought by penalizing keyword stuffing hidden from humans. Both search ranking and LLM decision-making rely on processing signals that bypass human scrutiny, creating incentives for adversarial manipulation at scale. As AI systems become infrastructure for hiring, lending, and content moderation, the stakes have shifted from gaming traffic to corrupting consequential decisions.