You are looking at the HTML representation of the XML format.
HTML is good for debugging, but is unsuitable for application use.
Specify the format parameter to change the output format.
To see the non HTML representation of the XML format, set format=xml.
See the complete documentation, or API help for more information. 
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query>
    <search>
      <p ns="0" title="Artificial intelligence and society" snippet="...can be used effectively. For example, an effort will be needed to make the &lt;span class=&#039;searchmatch&#039;&gt;meaning&lt;/span&gt; of data explicit, together with a representation of the context in which th&#10;" size="17047" wordcount="2547" timestamp="2020-05-09T16:01:38Z" />
    </search>
  </query>
</api>