Chatbot AI showdown – huge changes to search coming soon!
In 2023 everyone’s talking about AI, and we now have some more information about how the major search engines (Google and Bing) plan to utilise this technology and change the way we search online.
If your business relies on getting clicks from search engines, you should be following these developments very closely – companies will get left behind as the technology improves and proactive marketers align their website copy and structure to benefit from the new tech.
‘It’s a new paradigm for search, rapid innovation is going to come’ Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during a launch event for Bing’s ChatGPT service.
‘In fact, a race starts today … every day we want to bring out new things, and most importantly, we want to have a lot of fun innovating in search because it’s high time.’
Stuck getting started optimising AI-powered search engines for your business? Get in touch and we’d be happy to have a chat about getting a head start on your competition.
Google Bard
Are the days of Google’s ubiquity behind us? It’s not really possible to say at this point, but it’s definitely worth ensuring your website is optimised for both Bing and Google’s new AI.
‘Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of our large language models … It draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses,’ wrote Google CEO Sunda Pichai.
How will this actually end up working in practice? Well, we don’t have to wait long. Click here to try a demo.
Questions like ‘is the banjo or guitar easier to learn’ or ‘how do I catch the ferry to Fraser Island’ won’t be met with a wall of ads and links to blog posts – the software will answer directly, drawing from the Internet.
You’ll talk directly to Google Bard (powered by a ‘large language model’ named LaMBDA), which is fully up to date with current events and aims to provide a more organic, conversational tone with regards to web searches.
Microsoft Bing’s ChatGPT powered AI.
‘The new Bing and Edge – Your copilot for the web’
Microsoft has just launched some information about their OpenAI powered ‘Prometheus’ AI model – a ‘proprietary way of working with the OpenAI model that allows us to best leverage its power. We call this collection of capabilities and techniques the Prometheus model. This combination gives you more relevant, timely and targeted results, with improved safety.’
The updated Microsoft Edge web browser will have Bing built in – allowing users to chat with Prometheus directly using a search tool anchored to the side of websites.
Now, when you think search, you think Google. It’s become the default verb for looking online. But even Rome burned – and Bing isn’t as far behind as you may think.
They have a ‘first mover advantage’ in the sense that people have been using OpenAI for months already. After a 10 billion dollar investment from Microsoft, the two companies are ready to work together and claw back some market share on an underutilised platform.
Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, said his company’s goal is ‘to make the benefits of AI to as many people as possible’.
‘While Bing today only has roughly 9 percent of the search market, further integrating this unique ChatGPT tool and algorithms into the Microsoft search platform could result in major share shifts away from Google and towards Redmond down the road,’ Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush, said in an investor note.
Just because everyone says Google today, doesn’t mean they will tomorrow. We strongly recommend preparing your website to benefit from all search engines. The Edge browser is much better than Internet Explorer ever was, and Microsoft have been working hard on integrating AI into their entire ecosystem, so it’ll be fascinating to see how this pans out.
Additionally, if you’re in an industry with heavy competition, clicks and results can be cheaper through Bing. According to a blog on their site, there are 10 billion search queries a day and half of them end up ‘unanswered’, leaving plenty of space for savvy business owners and marketers to grow market share online.
Examples and Thoughts
Let’s use the example of a new television. If you want to pair it with one of the new gaming consoles and enjoy an optimal experience there are many factors you need to consider (you need a TV with HDMI 2.1, you want a low refresh rate for gaming, etc.).
Using an AI model for digital marketing means you could simply ask ‘which TVs are best for gaming’ and the software will chat with you about what you need, what type of games you like to play, how serious of a gamer you are, your budget, and come up with recommendations from there – saving hours of research, misinformation and contradictions.
If your question is a bit more advanced, it can parse more complex queries:
E.g. My anniversary is coming up in September, help me plan a trip somewhere fun in Queensland, within 5 hours’ travel from Brisbane.
Using this query might end up with information about Moreton Island, Fraser Island, Noosa, Broadbeach, etc.
How much of an effect will this have on ‘search’ as we know it? It’s still early in the piece, so we don’t know yet. The AI algorithms can analyse vast amounts of data, user behaviour, search history and more to help provide far more helpful results than their predecessors. Will this mean people stay ‘within’ the search engine rather than clicking through to external sites?
We’ll also have to consider digital marketing strategies for voice search – for example, we’re moving away from ‘digital marketing brisbane’ as a keyword and more towards ‘what’s the best digital marketing company in Brisbane for destination marketing?’ The goal is natural, organic conversation which will benefit those who have their website optimised for it. Sites which have been stuffing keywords into low quality copy will find themselves suffering quite quickly.
This new software will be huge for online marketing – search engines on the Internet are going to change irreversibly in 2023. If search helps drive traffic to your business, it’s imperative to optimise your website for AI. Alternatively, you can hire someone like us to do it 🙂
Potential Issues
How will Google and Bing deal with transparency with regards to the sourcing of data? What happens if their program provides you with incorrect information which results in injury or financial loss?
As they said in school, we’d like to see the ‘working’ – how did the GPT get this information and where did it come from? That’s how we’ll be leveraging our SEO efforts – so thinking laterally about how to drive queries and traffic to your site will be one of the most important ways to benefit from this new tech.
Bing is currently using a ‘See More’ button which will link through to the website which supplied the data for their answer. They also bold results which hyperlink through to the relevant website.
No word yet on how Google will ‘show their working’, but we’ll update this article as more information comes to light about their AI search engine.
Using Digital Marketing AI In Your Business
The team at MVLA Digital has been following every iteration of the new software with great interest, and is proactively and iteratively updating our clients’ sites to extract maximum benefit from the changing of the search guard.
One thing’s for sure – there’s a first mover advantage in this area, so if your industry has a lot of competitors, start a conversation with us today to learn how we can help you rule the robots!