With Google I/O 2024 taking place this week, many marketers will be paying close attention to the latest information on generative AI and the future of search.
The annual developer conference, held on Tuesday, has always been a place for search giants to highlight major innovations to a variety of audiences. At Google I/O 2023, the company introduced Search Generation Experience (SGE). This is a generative AI search tool that has been tested for the past year and appears at the top of search results.
As conversations with chatbots become more common, generative AI will advance SEO by requiring brands to optimize for natural language and accuracy rather than keywords. Underlying all of this is the need for authoritative content, a challenge with many unclear strategies and solutions.
“When it comes to trusted content, the onus is on chatbots,” says Craig Emilia, chief creative officer at Stagwell Code & Theory agency. “I think conversational, real-time responses will require chatbots to provide fact-checking and transparent quotes to build user trust. They won't talk to people they don't trust.”
According to Emiliah, each platform may have a different focus when it comes to trusted content. While Google SGE is geared toward authoritative, fact-based content, she thinks Microsoft's Copilot might be better suited for her B2B queries. Meta's Meta AI, on the other hand, is likely to focus on discoverability for social and audience engagement. OpenAI's ChatGPT can emphasize source transparency, visuals, and conversational content.
While it's unclear how generative AI will change search, or for that matter, how quickly, agencies are already strategizing about the impact of generative AI on traditional search, generative search, and answers from chat-based bots. It is standing. Some are building new platforms in preparation, while researching and testing the current situation.
SEO agency Graphite released a new SEO platform earlier this month that focuses on topics rather than keywords. The platform used AI tools like natural language processing (NLP) and deep learning to analyze hundreds of millions of keywords and create a topic graph that helps reverse engineer user intent. According to Marcos Ciarrocchi, co-founder of Graphite, the tool allows companies to focus on which topics if they want chatbots to cite their website more in answers to user questions. It may also help you know which ones to guess.
“This all has to do with the original user intent, but it goes deeper than that,” Ciarrocchi says. “So we were able to bring some of these ideas to the surface. [which] As you're writing content, you'll receive dynamic feedback indicating whether this is a good answer or not. [and] What can I do to make it a better answer? ”
Using the SAAS platform, clients can find topics that are relevant to their audience, identify topics that are already authoritative, create content that is optimized for top rankings, and You can measure the results. Subscribers can also analyze topics to see their areas of authority compared to their competitors and look for gaps. The platform is built around Google's focus on topical authority, not PageRank.
Even though humans are overhauling SEO strategies, another question arises. How will that change compete with AI-generated content? This comes despite growing concerns about AI-generated website content ranking higher than more prestigious publishers. Graphite said that most URLs on Google are not from pages written by bots.
Graphite used software from Originality.AI to analyze approximately 5,000 URLs across 10 categories. Only 8% of URLs directed to content were completely or largely created by AI. Only 1.9% was produced by AI, and the remaining 6.2% was a mixture with high AI content. However, another 38.3% was found to be human content mixed with AI, and another 53.6% was found to be entirely human-authored. Human content also tended to appear higher in search results than content completely generated by AI, and on average it appeared five places lower than human content.
Other institutions are studying how search results change with generative AI platforms. SOCi Inc. researched how six platforms compared when asked about a variety of local topics and evaluated them on accuracy, relevance, reliability, usefulness, maps, and other criteria. Scored based on. Out of a total of 100 points, Gemini received the highest score, followed by Google SGE, Perplexity, Bing, and Meta. I also looked into ChatGPT, but it didn't answer most of my queries.
Damian Rolison, Director of Market Insights at SOCi, said each generative AI tool will “shape itself to your intent in a more direct way than traditional search.” He added that the bot's ability to answer questions will become even more important than traditional search.
“People are going to have to start understanding the difference between hype and usefulness and practicality,” Rolison said. “We're just starting to learn the language. It's important to focus on priorities that are actionable and relevant to the business.”
The impact of generative AI on search has also been highlighted in recent filings by publicly traded marketing and technology companies. Last week, Semrush's first quarter results mentioned recent investments in a new enterprise SEO platform, his AI-powered SEO alerts, and other tools. Other companies that have mentioned search-related or other generative AI in recent financial disclosures include Reddit, Nextdoor, Pinterest, Yext, Similarweb, and Eventbrite.
Some companies, including Airbnb, said changes by major search platforms such as Google could impact their business. According to Airbnb, “Google or Apple may use their own mobile operating system or app distribution channels to favor the offering of their or other preferred travel services, or we continue to offer our full product offering in those channels. If we impose a policy that effectively prohibits us from doing so, it could have a significant impact, negatively impacting our engagement with hosts and guests who access our platform through mobile apps and search. ”
Prompts and products: More AI news
- Meta has announced a new generative AI advertising tool with more ways to create images and text based on reference images and past campaigns.
- The Met Gala partnered with OpenAI to create a custom exhibit featuring a chatbot modeled after 1930s New York socialite Natalie Potter.
- An AI-generated image of Katy Perry at the Met Gala went viral, showing how difficult it is to identify deepfakes and stop the spread of misinformation.
- OpenAI joined the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity and served on C2PA's steering committee. It also announced a new media manager platform that will allow creators to protect their content from AI training, but critics say this does not resolve issues surrounding copyright concerns.
- Apple announced new AI tools for its Logic Pro software, but also faced widespread backlash over its new iPad ad, a metaphor for how tech companies are dashing the hopes of artists and creative industries. Some people saw it as such.
- TikTok has announced that it will begin automatically labeling AI content on its platform, which will now include content credentials used by major technology companies.
- AI audio startup Eleven Labs previewed A new tool for creating AI-generated music created with a single text prompt.
- DotDash Meredith has signed a deal with OpenAI, joining a growing group of publishers to help startups train with their content.
- Sprinklr has announced a new “digital twin” tool that allows companies to create AI versions of their own branded customer service bots.
- Starburst has released a new campaign that uses generative AI to create new scenes in different styles.
- Retail brands like Reebok and Adore Me have debuted separate capabilities for designing digital and physical items using generative AI.
- ServiceNow has debuted a new campaign featuring Idris Elba to showcase the company's AI capabilities.
1s and 0s: AI research, surveys, and more numbers
- A majority of Republicans, Democrats and independents said AI companies should not be allowed to use publicly available internet data to train their models, according to a survey by the Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute. .
- The New York Times spent $1 million in legal fees in its lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, according to its first-quarter 2024 financial results released last week.
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