Do AI answer tools and ChatGPT spell the end of search engines?
Do AI answer tools and ChatGPT spell the end of search engines?
tl;dr NO
Do AI answer tools and ChatGPT spell the end of search engines?
Throughout the last couple weeks since the launch of ChatGPT social media has been set on fire with the potential for this technology to completely upend the world order of marketing. Specifically, many people look at ChatGPT’s ability to quickly give an answer to a query as the death knell for search engines. Even within Google there has been a sense of panic as the CEO, Sundar Pichai, sees the possibility of AI impacting Google’s ability to drive revenue from search ads.
However, in my opinion we are a very long way from AI completely changing the landscape of digital marketing and ending Google’s dominance on this category. For starters there are still significant gaps in the knowledge base of ChatGPT as it only incorporates knowledge up to a certain point in the past. Therefore, it will not know anything about recent events and worldwide occurrences. This is a huge gap in its ability to serve as an accurate steward of information. Think about how often you make decisions based on current events and happenings. The gap will of course be filled but that day is not here yet and it may not be here for awhile.
More critically the information that comes out of ChatGPT isn’t always accurate which also casts doubt on how it can become the replacement for the current way of finding information. Search is of course hardly accurate for many queries, but the user has a choice in finding alternative answers and viewpoints and therefore aren’t led to believe that the information they see first is correct.
The biggest indicator of how big this challenge might be is to just look at how things have progressed in the digital assistant space. When the world was first introduced to Siri, it was also assumed to be a fundamental paradigm shift in how the world did and learned things; yet, over 11 years later we are still using search engines to find information.
Siri, Alexa and Google assistant also use AI to give answers, but they are limited in usefulness only in things that have single answers. Queries about events and facts are easy for these engines to provide but information that requires interpretation and critical thinking are outside their scope and capabilities. Search engines will always be dominant here because they surface a variety of potential solutions, a user can even go past the first results page, and the user can make their own determinations.
Regardless, I think AI answer engines are incredible and will fundamentally change many tasks and information gathering processes, I just don’t see how they are good enough now and in the near future to replace a search engine.
In the meantime, look at ChatGPT as a directional source for what Google and other search engines can do when there are single answers to specific queries. Any website that generates their primary SEO traffic from queries that can be easily answered by an AI tool like ChatGPT should consider their future traffic at risk as Google or other search engine will disintermediate the search results with a one-box answer.
In my next newsletters I will discuss the potential for AI content as a whole and share thoughts on how it could or should be used as an SEO tool.
------
If you are looking for a job or hiring check out my new Pallet. All job seekers can always add themselves for free, and for now hiring managers can list roles for free.