Chatting my question is better for "searching" 90% of the time, so what does this mean for search and search marketing as a medium to get answers to customers? How are you preparing for the day when people stop using search engines? What if tomorrow was the day that ChatGPT did to Google, what Google did to Yahoo! Directory? Now we know it is NOT tomorrow (Gartner predicts 50% drop in organic traffic by 2028), but what if it was, how would you start to pivot? People aren't going to have fewer questions, they are just going to have new (and better) ways to get them that don't require me going to Google. In this post I outline, why I think an LLM like Gemini, or ChatGPT or Perplexity is better "answer engine" than a "search engine" - the ability to give all the detail & all the context in 1 query about my specific situation vs doing 8 searches, avoiding pop ups, and ads, and cluttered Google SERP is just the beginning. Link in comments.
I keep coming back to trust. I don't trust what ai generates so I want to get to the source of truth. Inaccuracy is like bad margins, it's a scaling issue. Maybe it gets better, but will I ever trust it? Will there be accountability behind the results like a domain offers?
I wonder how long it will be until the chat responses start getting cluttered with ads and other nonsense.
I absolutely love this “reject the premise” reset. I think this is going to create a resurgence of Voice Search especially in the workforce. I’m in the B2B space, so I could imagine a future where engineers walking a data center or manufacturing floor where their virtual assistant or co-pilot (aka chatbots) is helping to troubleshoot on the floor without having to pull up a datasheet or config file.
People aren't going to be less inquisitive - I agree, but the way they search will change too - not only LLMs, but how they search - speaking a question - and to what (LLM, chatbot, assistant, etc). SEOs won't be out of a job - but the job will change and adapt (IMO).
It’s a pretty insane concept to think about and grasp, when thinking ahead and the predicted drop in organic traffic via users and search engine requests by 2028. How will it affect things? deep thoughts now about the whole thing.
I totally agree there’s a difference between looking for an answer vs searching for learning and research. Unfortunately, search will become less prevalent for the masses and will likely become niche in time. Question is…how will advertising change to adapt?
Wow, Wil, you turn over more rocks than most and I most certainly appreciate it. Great read. Now my hair hurts …
From consuming information point of view this may seem good Wil Reynolds but what will happen to advertising, marketing to reach the customer, and the niche publisher whose business model depends on AdSense.
Betting on GPTBots is a a great tip. I’ve been thinking about these a lot lately. Lmk when Ask Wil is ready 🚀! Also - Rankings maintaining as a KPI is interesting. Any thoughts on how that could work? My first thought was wouldn’t it be binary - like it showed or it didn’t. I guess it could also be the rank order in which it appears within each answer vs the other sources. But the remixing of sources together may make that complicated It’ll be interesting to see how it all evolves!
VP Innovation at Seer Interactive
10moWhat if people stopped using search engines tomorrow? https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/thought-exercise-what-if-people-stopped-using-search-engines-tomorrow