On its own, AI doesn't actually know current events, because it was only trained up to its knowledge cutoff date. Newer models have newer cutoffs. Claude's Opus 4.8, for example, was January 2026. Older models have older ones, so always know your model's cutoff before you assume it knows something recent.
So how does it tell you today's news or weather? Most chat platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok have a Web Search tool that lets AI read live web pages just like you would. You can watch it happen: ask it to search recent news and you'll usually see a little search indicator appear.
Here's the catch. Having the tool and using the tool are two different things. Web search is a button AI can press, but it doesn't always press it. A lot of the time it just guesses from its training data instead, and it does this more as the conversation gets longer. The worst part is that it answers with full confidence even when the information is six to twelve months old.