Google Generative AI and What It Means for Your Business
Recently Google announced its generative search AI model for search and has begun letting a select few test it out. Some good things seem to come with this, along with some… areas of opportunity. In today’s blog post, we will cover them both and how your search engine optimization strategies may be impacted.
If you own a business, work in marketing, or have generally not had your head under a rock, you’ve heard nonstop talk about generative AI and how it's impacting the way we work. Google has been working on a way to get into the AI game and stay ahead of Bing as they introduced their version of AI search results.
Google wants to try and keep people on the actual search results page as long as possible. To do that, they’re providing a generated response to search queries at the top of the page, comprised of information it pulls from some of the top results. This is good and bad for a few reasons. On the plus side, this will allow people to get answers to basic searches much easier. It will improve the user experience in those instances. On the other hand, for more complex searches, the accuracy rate is less than 100%. Even if it was 95%, you have to assume that further verification is needed, leaving a user in the same position as before AI.
The next issue comes with searches that require a more professional touch. It has been reported that searches in fields like the medical field provide generated responses but say that the user should consult a medical professional. In an instance like this, it begs the question of whether or not generative AI is always right to have for certain searches. They should assume the laziest in people and that they may read a generated response and take it as gospel. To us, that seems grossly irresponsible. Granted, this is all an early beta, and this is not in its final form, so we can only hope that the powers that be make the appropriate adjustments.
Overall, SEO experts and specialists don’t seem to be too impressed with Google’s Generative AI. It doesn’t seem to be a quality improvement over search, which is something that most of us didn’t realize needed this big of an overhaul.
So what does this mean for your own website and SEO strategies? If you have a well-rounded strategy focused on providing value, then you don’t have to worry quite yet. As we have mentioned many times before, Google rewards content that is built to provide value for the end user. Blog posts and web pages that provide quality information revolving around search queries will continue to be pushed to the top. That top just might be a little further down the page with the Google AI.
As for where the AI gets its information, it will still be pulling from content on the web. It will be important now more than ever to be on top of current events in your industry. It has been heard that Google and its AI will pull its information from the quickest reliable sources to publish content about a topic.
Overall, the jury is still out on Google’s generative AI. That said, it seems it leaves much to be desired. It’s difficult to know exactly how this will impact the future of SEO, but you can be sure that we will be on top of it.
