There are also some concerns with the rise of AI-powered search engines, including opacity of the provenance of information, the possibility of “illusory” answers, and copyright issues.
But another consequence is that I believe it has the potential to destroy the $68 billion search engine optimization industry that companies like Google helped create.
For the past 25 years or so, websites, news organizations, blogs, and many other businesses with URLs that want to get attention have turned to search engine optimization (SEO) to get their content shared as high as possible. We have “persuaded” search engines. The results they provide to their readers. This has increased traffic to the site and also created an industry of consultants and marketers advising on the best practices.
I am an associate professor of information and operations management, researching the economics of electronic commerce. I believe that all of that will likely become obsolete as the use of generative AI expands.
How online search works
People looking for information online open their browser, access a search engine, and type in relevant keywords. Search engines display results and users browse the links that appear in the results list until they find relevant information.
To attract users' attention, online content providers use various search engine marketing strategies, such as search engine optimization, paid advertising, and banner displays.
For example, news websites hire consultants to help Google and Bing highlight keywords in headlines and metadata to help Google and Bing improve their content when users search for the latest information about floods or political crises. You must to do something before you go on.
How generative AI is changing the search process
But this all depends on search engines directing tens of millions of users to your website. Therefore, to gain a user's loyalty and her web traffic, search engines must continuously work on their algorithms to improve the quality of search results.
That's why search engines have been quick to experiment with generative AI to improve search results, even if it might hurt some of their revenue streams. And this could fundamentally change the online search ecosystem.
All of the biggest search engines have already adopted or are experimenting with this approach. Examples include Google's Bard, Microsoft's Bing AI, Baidu's ERNIE, and DuckDuckGo's DuckAssist.
Rather than retrieving a list of links, both organic and paid, based on the keywords or questions entered by the user, the generative AI simply provides text results in the form of answers. Let's say you're planning a trip to Destin, Florida. There, enter the prompt “Create her 3-day itinerary for the visitor.” Instead of a link to Yelp or a blog post that you have to click and read multiple times, you input it into Bing AI and it creates a detailed 3-day itinerary for her.
Over time, as the quality of AI-generated answers improves, users become less motivated to browse the search results list. Save time and effort by reading responses to AI-generated queries.
In other words, you will be able to bypass all the paid links and expensive efforts your website does to improve its SEO score, rendering it useless.
When users start ignoring sponsored and edited results lists, it negatively impacts the revenue of SEO consultants, search engine marketer consultants, and ultimately the search engines themselves.
Financial impact
This economic impact cannot be ignored.
For example, the SEO industry generated $68.1 billion globally in 2022. It was expected to reach $129.6 billion by 2030, but these predictions were made before the advent of generative AI put the industry at risk of becoming obsolete.
When it comes to search engines, monetizing online search services is the main source of revenue. They receive a portion of the funds that websites spend increasing their online visibility through paid listings, advertising, affiliate marketing, etc. (collectively referred to as search engine marketing). For example, about 58% of Google's 2022 revenue, or almost $162.5 billion, will come from Google Ads, which provides some of these services.
Search engines run by large companies with many revenue streams, such as Google and Microsoft, will find ways to offset their losses by coming up with strategies to generate revenue from AI-driven generative answers. However, this industry is unlikely to survive for long, as search engine-dependent SEO marketers and consultants (mostly small businesses) will no longer be needed as much as they are today.
the not so distant future
But don't expect the SEO industry to disappear anytime soon. Generative AI search engines are still in their infancy and need to address certain challenges before dominating search.
First, most of these efforts are still experimental and often available only to certain users. And for another, generative AI is notorious for providing inaccurate, plagiarized, or simplistic data. made up answer.
This means that it is unlikely to gain the trust or loyalty of many users at this time.
Given these challenges, it's no surprise that generative AI has yet to transform online search. But given the resources available to researchers working on generative AI models, it's safe to assume that these models will eventually be better able to do their jobs, leading to the end of the SEO industry. .
Ravi Sen is an associate professor of information and operations management at Texas A&M University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
