Website operators across the web are reporting increased activity from AI web crawlers. This surge raises concerns about site performance, analytics, and server resources.
These bots consume significant bandwidth to collect data for large language models, which could impact performance metrics relevant to search rankings.
Here’s what you need to know.
How AI Crawlers May Affect Site Performance
SEO professionals regularly optimize for traditional search engine crawlers, but the growing presence of AI crawlers from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Amazon presents new technical considerations.
Several site operators have reported performance issues and increased server loads directly attributable to AI crawler activity.
“SourceHut continues to face disruptions due to aggressive LLM crawlers,” reported the git-hosting service on its status page.
In response, SourceHut has “unilaterally blocked several cloud providers, including GCP [Google Cloud] and [Microsoft] Azure, for the high volumes of bot traffic originating from their networks.”
Data from cloud hosting service Vercel shows the scale of this traffic: OpenAI’s GPTBot generated 569 million requests in a single month, while Anthropic’s Claude accounted for 370 million.
These AI crawlers represented about 20 percent of Google’s search crawler volume during the same period.
The Potential Impact On Analytics Data
Significant bot traffic can affect analytics data.
According to DoubleVerify, an ad metrics firm, “general invalid traffic – aka GIVT, bots that should not be counted as ad views – rose by 86 percent in the second half of 2024 due to AI crawlers.”
The firm noted that “a record 16 percent of GIVT from known-bot impressions in 2024 were generated by those that are associated with AI scrapers, such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot and AppleBot.”
The Read the Docs project found that blocking AI crawlers decreased their traffic by 75 percent, from 800GB to 200GB daily, saving approximately $1,500 per month in bandwidth costs.
Identifying AI Crawler Patterns
Understanding AI crawler behavior can help with traffic analysis.
What makes AI crawlers different from traditional bots is their frequency and depth of access. While search engine crawlers typically follow predictable patterns, AI crawlers exhibit more aggressive behaviors.
Dennis Schubert, who maintains infrastructure for the Diaspora social network, observed that AI crawlers “don’t just crawl a page once and then move on. Oh, no, they come back every 6 hours because lol why not.”
This repeated crawling multiplies the resource consumption, as the same pages are accessed repeatedly without a clear rationale.
Beyond frequency, AI crawlers are more thorough, exploring more content than typical visitors.
Drew DeVault, founder of SourceHut, noted that crawlers access “every page of every git log, and every commit in your repository,” which can be particularly resource-intensive for content-heavy sites.
While the high traffic volume is concerning, identifying and managing these crawlers presents additional challenges.
As crawler technology evolves, traditional blocking methods prove increasingly ineffective.
Software developer Xe Iaso noted, “It’s futile to block AI crawler bots because they lie, change their user agent, use residential IP addresses as proxies, and more.”
Balancing Visibility With Resource Management
Website owners and SEO professionals face a practical consideration: managing resource-intensive crawlers while maintaining visibility for legitimate search engines.
To determine if AI crawlers are significantly impacting your site:
Review server logs for unusual traffic patterns, especially from cloud provider IP ranges
Look for spikes in bandwidth usage that don’t correspond with user activity
Check for high traffic to resource-intensive pages like archives or API endpoints
Monitor for unusual patterns in your Core Web Vitals metrics
Several options are available for those impacted by excessive AI crawler traffic.
Google introduced a solution called Google-Extended in the robots.txt file. This allows websites to stop having their content used to train Google’s Gemini and Vertex AI services while still allowing those sites to show up in search results.
Cloudflare recently announced “AI Labyrinth,” explaining, “When we detect unauthorized crawling, rather than blocking the request, we will link to a series of AI-generated pages that are convincing enough to entice a crawler to traverse them.”
Looking Ahead
As AI integrates into search and discovery, SEO professionals should manage crawlers carefully.
Here are some practical next steps:
Audit server logs to assess AI crawler impact on your specific sites
Consider implementing Google-Extended in robots.txt to maintain search visibility while limiting AI training access
Adjust analytics filters to separate bot traffic for more accurate reporting
For severely affected sites, investigate more advanced mitigation options
Most websites will do fine with standard robots.txt files and monitoring. However, high-traffic sites may benefit from more advanced solutions.
This year’s selection of podcasts reflects a growing sophistication and expertise in the industry, a reaction to the intensity of pressure from AI and the erosion of organic search.
The following SEO podcasts have been chosen for their grasp of what’s happening right now, publishing frequency, and willingness to embrace a more expansive perspective on all aspects of search marketing.
1. Crawling Mondays by Aleyda Solis
Host: Aleyda Solis.
Crawling Mondays is by International SEO specialist Aleyda Solis. Her podcast covers the latest news related to SEO every Monday.
Aleyda also publishes special episodes on topics that matter to digital marketers. Recent episodes featured an interview with Danny Sullivan, a discussion on whether ecommerce sites should produce informational content, how to to achieve programmatic content that’s not spammy and an in-depth discussion of JavaScript SEO.
Hosts: Michael Chidzey, Jo Turnbull, Ruth Turnbull.
The affable hosts of the Good Signals SEO Office Hours podcast step into the gap left by Google’s essentially defunct SEO Office Hours show, offering their own take on discussing user-submitted questions. Every week features different guests, lending each episode a fresh perspective on SEO and a sense of community.
SERPs Up is a Wix SEO podcast focusing on questions and how-to’s relevant to publishers, in-house teams, agencies, and freelance search marketing professionals. They publish episodes weekly, with each episode lasting about thirty minutes, making them easy to commit to during those small pockets of free time.
Each episode covers a novel topic useful to most professionals. Recent episodes have focused on subjects like unifying offline and online marketing, thinking beyond algorithms, whether there’s such a thing as too much data, and email marketing.
The Majestic SEO Podcast is a long-running and prolific podcast hosted by David Bain. It focuses on a diverse range of topics that are directly and indirectly related to SEO, including accessibility, user experience, AI search trends, and SEO itself. Their treatment of SEO is expansive, covering topics ranging from mining the sales team for customer insights to omnichannel marketing and examining what the phrase ‘Expert Content’ really means.
Host David Bain also looks ahead at developing trends by exploring concepts like agentic AI. Some episodes take a broader approach, stepping outside traditionally considered SEO topics—such as an interview with a psychology expert on how psychological principles could be applied to SEO.
SEO is a highly subjective field, and it’s easy for biases to narrow the range of discussion. That’s why it’s refreshing that Bain takes an expansive approach, welcoming a wide variety of guests and perspectives to the Majestic SEO Podcast.
Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger, hosts of one of the longest-running SEO podcasts, discuss the latest news and issues top of mind in the SEO community. Both hosts have decades of experience and draw from a deep well of knowledge, giving each topic the benefit of their considerable expertise.
Hosts Sarah and Tazmin publish a weekly podcast about the experiences of life as a search marketing professional. Recent episodes discuss how to create a successful conference speaker pitch, how to enjoy networking, and how to make time for breaks. Google and its competitors never sleep. How does one keep up while also balancing career growth and personal fulfillment?
Covering both the personal and professional sides of the industry, their discussions provide insights, advice, and relatable stories for listeners navigating similar paths.
IMHO is a bi-weekly show where experts offer their ‘IMHO’ on current topics to get a diverse range of approaches and perspective to the same topics. The short format is around 15 minutes aimed at time-poor marketers who don’t have an hour to spare but want to keep up with expert opinions in SEO.
Recent topics include discussions about how AI is impacting SEO with guests such as Pedro Dias, Mark Williams-Cook, Dawn Anderson, Jono Alderson, Arnout Hellemans, Crystal Carter, and more.
Also worth listening to is the less regular SEO Pioneers series where Shelley interviews search marketing experts, about the history of SEO. It’s a great way to understand what’s happening from the unique perspective of experience and time.
John Mueller even credited the show as ‘one to watch’ on Google Search News.
Listen and watch both IMHO and SEO Pioneers on YouTube.
8. Near Memo Podcast
Hosts: Greg Sterling, Mike Blumenthal.
The Near Memo podcast discusses Local Search SEO, covering both current developments and broader industry trends. Recent episodes have explored Google Business Profile (GBP) issues, AI’s role in local search, and the growing challenge of review fraud, providing insights that help businesses and marketers stay on top.
Recent episode topics explored Google Business Profiles, new Google Maps features, and navigating Google reviews. Hosts Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal bring decades of experience to the podcast, and it shows.
Hosts: Greg Finn, Jessica Budde, Christine ‘Shep’ Zirnheld, and Julia Meteer.
The Marketing O’Clock podcast delivers news and insights about paid advertising, as well as topics related to search and eCommerce. In an industry that can sound like an echo chamber, Marketing O’Clock offers its own unique blend of news, making it a great way to keep up with current events that may have been overlooked. Recent topics include Instagram’s new advertising format that enables creators to get paid and Bitly’s addition of interstitial advertising to shortened URLs.
Their podcast is released every Friday. Add it to your calendar and tune in to the latest episodes.
Hosts: Gary Illyes, John Mueller, Lizzi Sassman, Martin Splitt.
Search Off the Record is an informal podcast about search and SEO from Google’s perspective. Topics range from a behind-the-scenes look at search crawlers and indexing to the considerations that went into rewriting Google’s SEO Starter Guide, search ranking updates, and the concept of quality in search.
Two factors make Google’s podcast notable:
Variety: There’s no other podcast that relates search and SEO from the search engine’s point of view.
Authoritative source: The fact that it’s created by Google is a compelling reason to tune in.
The podcasts tend to ramble in the beginning with some extended banter and kidding around. But once the hosts get going, the insights start.
Edge Of The Web offers a roundup of the week’s SEO news with coverage of topics like Google updates, LinkedIn analytics, content authenticity, and Meta advertising, plus guests like Paula Mejia of Wix, Lidia Infante, and Britney Muller.
UK-based Jack Chambers-Ward hosts a wide-ranging SEO podcast that sometimes offers challenging points of view, proving that SEO is a truly subjective topic. Recent episodes featured guests like Mordy Oberstein discussing branded search and a lively discussion with Itamar Blauer about Google and AI Search, raising the question of how much trust must erode before Google starts losing market share. Some of the topics explored invite different perspectives, and the podcast is at its best when embracing that dynamic.
Clarity Digital podcast is a relatively new podcast that’s been highly active for the past few months. Its guests have decades of experience across a range of marketing topics that cover SEO and adjacent topics, reflecting the reality that modern SEO and marketing are intersecting more now than at any other time in search marketing history.
Recent episodes covered AI’s role in writing with Amanda Clark, branding and SEO strategies with Ash Nallawalla, and modern social advertising tactics with Akvile DeFazio.
There are a few new additions this year, and a few dropped off because they stopped publishing. This year’s list is the strongest to date because of the high quality of the commentary and the wide topics covered which will appeal to search marketing professionals, business owners and creators.
Recent data shows that fewer Americans support banning TikTok.
At the same time, Democratic lawmakers warn that President Donald Trump’s current plans may not be enough to keep the platform online after the April 5 deadline.
Public Support For TikTok Ban Weakens
A Pew Research Center survey found that 34% of U.S. adults support banning TikTok, down from 50% in March 2023.
Fewer Americans now view TikTok as a national security threat, 49% compared to 59% in May 2023.
Opposition to the ban has risen from 22% to 32%, with one-third of Americans undecided. Support for a ban is higher among Republicans (39%) than among Democrats (30%).
Only 12% of TikTok users want a ban, compared to 45% of non-users.
Those in favor cite data security (83%) and Chinese ownership (75%), while opponents often point to free speech concerns (74%).
Democrats Challenge Trump’s Approach
On March 24, three Democratic senators—Ed Markey (D-MA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Cory Booker (D-NJ)—wrote to President Trump to criticize how his administration handled the TikTok situation.
They don’t support the ban, but they believe Trump’s order to extend the deadline for selling TikTok by 75 days is “unlawful.” They say this decision creates uncertainty about the platform’s future.
“To the extent that you continue trying to delay the divestment deadline through executive orders, any further extensions of the TikTok deadline will require Oracle, Apple, Google, and other companies to continue risking ruinous legal liability.”
Proposed Solutions & Path Forward
Reports say the Trump administration is considering a partnership with Oracle. In this arrangement, Oracle would buy a small share of TikTok and ensure the security of U.S. user data.
However, critics, including John Moolenaar, the Republican Chair of the House China Select Committee, warn that this plan might not fulfill the law’s requirements for a “qualified divestiture.”
Democrats are asking Trump to work with Congress instead of acting alone.
They have put forward two proposed solutions:
The “Extend the TikTok Deadline Act” would move the deadline for selling TikTok to October 16, giving more time to find a solution that meets the law.
Changes to the original law by Congress if Trump wants to go ahead with a deal with Oracle.
What’s Next?
The Democratic senators have requested that Trump respond to their questions by March 28.
They want to know whether his administration is considering further extending the deadline, details about the potential Oracle deal, and whether he believes additional legislative action is necessary.
As the April 5 deadline approaches, the future of one of the most influential social media platforms remains uncertain.
Aligning your team around the data points that drive the most impact.
When these pieces come together, you gain the clarity to track progress, scale insights, and make informed decisions with confidence.
But, how do you get there?
That’s where a marketing measurement plan comes in. This framework acts as a blueprint, outlining the critical components that keep your marketing data and analytics running smoothly.
It helps align stakeholders at every level – whether channel managers, developers, or leadership – so that everyone is working from the same playbook.
Most importantly, it keeps strategy and success metrics anchored to a common goal.
Let’s dive into the key elements and start building one for your business.
The Marketing Measurement Plan In A Nutshell
What Is It?
It is a map of individual inputs for accurate reporting that informs meaningful business insights.
What Does It Do?
It documents the business-critical measurements needed to track the results of a marketing plan and the high-level technical requirements that make it possible.
It doesn’t set benchmarks or goals. Rather, it’s the documentation of the “what” and “how.”
Why Is It Valuable?
1. It Clarifies Reporting Needs For Stakeholders Handling Implementation
Know exactly what’s needed to support the team because it’s all “right there.”
Ideally, stakeholders have played a role in mapping out the measurement model, so they’ll have no problem taking it from ideation to implementation.
2. Tracking Gaps Are Caught Before They Become Problems
There’s nothing quite as disheartening as getting to the end of a campaign and finding critical metrics missing from reporting.
The marketing measurement plan gathers inputs from – and is reviewed by – multiple stakeholders across the team. So, there’s less likelihood of discovering gaps down the road.
3. Creating A Marketing Measurement Plan Breaks Down Silos By Nature
It requires cross-channel and cross-functional input. Then, all of that input gets factored into prioritization at the highest level, documented in a language everyone can speak.
4. It Defines What Matters Most For Strategic Alignment
Is it more important to prioritize traffic or a specific conversion type based on business objectives?
You can see how even just that one important clarification makes a world of difference in strategy at the channel level.
For example, if the answer is conversion, SEO professionals would likely prioritize work specific to product pages over blog URLs in their roadmap.
5. It’s A Helpful Reference For Future Tracking Implementations
If and when new tracking is required, there’s a place to document any additions over time and ensure the tracking doesn’t already exist.
Plus, the implementation team can see everything else that’s already in place, so nothing gets broken in the process.
10 Questions Behind A Marketing Measurement Plan
A marketing measurement plan includes three distinct sections:
Technical Requirements.
Events & Audiences.
Implementation Requirements.
Tech Requirements
Cars can’t go anywhere without roads. Similarly, there needs to be a path for data to travel to the team. You need to map the key data sources, where they intersect, and where all of that data collects.
That’s a matter of answering a couple of questions, which will likely require input from the dev team.
What’s Our Front-End Tech Stack?
Implementing the analytics pipeline looks different depending on what your site uses to serve content.
In some cases, it’s actually multiple platforms, which means there’s additional work on each of them to get data into the same pool.
The Wappalyzer extension is an easy way to look under the hood and see the different platforms in play.
Just remember, it’s giving you information specific to the page rather than the whole site.
So, if you’re looking at a product page that’s served via Shopify, but the blog is built on WordPress, you wouldn’t catch that from the one page.
Screenshot from Wappalyzer extension for Chrome, February 2025
Alternatively, if you have access to Sitebulb, you can crawl the site with the Parse Technologies setting enabled.
This will give you a list of technologies used across the site, rather than just testing one page.
Screenshot from Sitebulb Performance & Mobile Friendly Crawler Settings, February 2025
When it comes down to it, the best route is to sync with developers, who’ll be able to break down the purpose of each platform.
You’ll want to make sure that the measurement plan includes:
Traffic comes from many places: email, organic search, PPC ads, affiliate articles, etc. The traffic behaves differently based on the source because each source plays a slightly different role in the marketing strategy.
Additionally, each source is made up of different referrers, but not all of those referrers will matter to every business.
For example, a B2B SaaS company probably cares more about LinkedIn than Instagram, whereas the opposite is likely true for an ecommerce brand.
Both sources and referrers need to be mapped for implementation to ensure the audiences are available in reporting.
Mapping source to referrers using social media as an example (Image from author, February 2025)
The measurement plan should include the following:
Which users are most likely to convert? Which behaviors show that users are moving closer to converting? Which promotions are most effective for which types of users?
We can answer these questions by mapping behavior to the marketing funnel, allowing us to understand where different actions fit within the customer journey.
In turn, this helps marketers make the right “ask” of users at the right moment.
A visualization of the marketing funnel (Image from author, February 2025)
For example, users coming from a link in an affiliate article are probably less ready to purchase than users who click through an email CTA.
But, they could be willing to exchange their email address for a discount or resource, which would lead them into email, where users are more likely to convert.
To validate that assumption or extract insights, we need the right data. But first, we need to define what the right data is by identifying meaningful behaviors worth tracking.
What’s The Primary Action We Want The User To Take?
Every business has a desired end-point to the digital marketing funnel, a.k.a. a conversion.
The user action considered a conversion differs based on the objectives of the business.
A blog site will want users to subscribe, whereas an ecommerce company will hope to drive a purchase, and B2B SaaS marketing aims to drive qualified leads for the sales team.
The measurement plan should identify the user behavior that represents a conversion, which could include:
Transaction.
Request demo.
Subscription.
Start a free trial.
What Do Users Do As They Move Down The Funnel?
No one has a 100% conversion rate. The customer journey is made of multiple touchpoints and is not always linear.
To understand those touchpoints, marketers need to define the “micro-conversions” on the path to conversion, i.e., identify the smaller behaviors that users who convert exhibit along the way, and how close those actions are to a conversion versus one another.
Visualizing where micro-conversions fit in the marketing funnel (Image from author, February 2025)
The next section in your marketing plan should list micro-conversions within your customer funnel, including but not limited to:
Add a product to cart.
Sign up for email.
Share onsite content.
Download a sales or solution sheet.
Initiate a chat.
Engage with specific content (ratings/reviews, FAQs, etc.).
The problem with that: Just because a user didn’t bounce, it doesn’t mean they’re engaged per se. Couple that with the increase in the use of cookie banners, and you can see why it’s not the most telling metric.
For example, users who toggle product configurations on the product page might be more likely to convert than those who simply visit a product page. But, if that micro-conversion isn’t tracked, that insight would go by the wayside.
The measurement plan documents custom engagements (of which there can be many), including any relevant items from this list of common events:
Start a form.
Toggle product configurations.
View product images in carousel.
Log into account.
View a video.
Which Patterns Can We Use To Identify Valuable Groups Of Users?
Within the audience of people who visit your site, different segments will share different behaviors.
Some will be more valuable from a conversion standpoint, or may need unique pathing down the funnel.
To identify those segments and tailor marketing to their needs, we first have to map audiences to specific behaviors.
GA4 has some basic segments built in, such as audience by traffic source. However, creating your own audiences lends itself to more telling insights.
You can group users based on any number of conditions working together, allowing you to narrow the scope further.
In your measurement plan, focus on combinations of behavior that lend themselves to a deeper level of understanding. Here are some examples:
Group purchasers by the number of site visits before purchase.
Group engaged users by first session source.
Group users by intent based on landing-page category.
Implementation Requirements
We’ve gathered information about how our site works and what we want to measure. Now, it’s time to lay out the details of implementing analytics and reporting functionality.
This final section of the measurement plan covers requirements like the platforms to use and the specific parameters that make it possible to track events.
With that said, it’s generally a good section for the data/analytics team to own.
Which Analytics Platforms Should We Use?
Collecting data is one thing. For that data to be useful for marketing & analytics stakeholders, they need to be able to access, manage, and share it.
Otherwise, they can’t dig in for insights or report performance to the team.
That’s where the analytics solution comes in. The most well-known is GA4, though alternative platforms like Heap and Matomo are also available.
Then, another layer down are complementary tools for more specific types of data, including tools for A/B testing, heat mapping, etc. They generally depend on the API of the primary analytics solution.
In the measurement plan, make sure to document:
The primary analytics solution (GA4, Heap, Matomo, etc.).
How Will We Create Dashboards For Other Stakeholders?
A business can’t expect every team member who benefits from reporting to run their own reports. Plus, that would get expensive quickly! Shared dashboards are essential for keeping everyone informed and streamlining the process.
A data visualization tool like Looker Studio lets marketing and analytics stakeholders create self-updating reporting with the most relevant measurements.
Add the following to your measurement plan: Dashboarding tools (Google Data Studio, Microsoft Power BI, etc.)
What’s Our Tag Management System?
The answer to this question is most commonly Google Tag Manager, but it’s still worth taking a moment to unpack tags at a high level. Plus, it’s worth noting that there are some alternatives to Google Tag Manager.
Tags are the code and fragments that make measurement possible. Using a tag manager, analysts can easily create tags and define trigger events.
Tags, triggers, and variables make up a container, which is usually implemented in collaboration with the dev team.
While a tag manager is optional, it’s extremely valuable for the safe, swift deployment of analytics changes and updates.
So, one more item for your document: Tag management system
How Do We Enable Custom Events?
We chatted about custom events earlier. Now, we need to map out the parameters that make it possible to capture those events in the analytics solution.
While GA4 has some default events available upon implementation, Heap and Matomo require “data chefs” to cook from scratch.
Either way, a business will inevitably have unique reporting needs that require customization, regardless of which analytics solution it uses.
Custom measures are set up in the tag manager and might require some configuration to get the right data output. That looks different from platform to platform.
List custom event parameters tailored to the specific requirements of the analytics solution, based on the documentation below:
Accurate Data + Strategic Alignment = Growth
A marketing measurement plan isn’t just a map for creating an analytics proficiency; it’s also a tool that can help make existing analytics more proficient.
In either case, it’s an opportunity to create alignment around what really matters and accurate reporting that works hard for everyone.
It’s time to create one for your business, following the steps above, with help from the right stakeholders.
Special thanks to Sam Torres, chief digital officer at Gray Dot Company and speaker at BrightonSEO, for her extensive contribution to this article. Her deep expertise in data strategy and digital marketing ensures the accuracy and relevance of the insights shared here.
The world of SEO has changed, especially with the rise of zero-click searches, where users get their answers directly on Google’s search results page without clicking through to any websites.
A study from SparkTaro found that zero-click searches accounted for nearly 60% of Google searches ending without a click in 2024.
This trend will continue to reshape the digital landscape and force marketers to adapt their strategies, but is traffic still king? Let’s explore.
Before we get into it, here are the most common types of zero click searches:
Featured Snippets: These are snippets of text that appear at the top of the SERP, that provide direct answers to specific questions. This could be in the form of paragraphs, lists, or tables.
Knowledge Panels: These information boxes appear on the side of the SERP, providing a quick overview of entities like people, places, or organizations.
Direct Answers: These are concise answers to simple questions, such as “How Hot Will It Be Today?” or “How many feet are in 36 inches?”
People Also Ask (PAA): This section displays related questions that users frequently ask, with answers provided directly on the SERP that are expandable.
Local Packs: For local searches, Google displays a map with business listings and information, allowing users to find what they need without clicking through to individual websites.
AI Overviews: Answers to queries that are generated by AI, which give a quick overview of a topic searched.
Calculators And Converters: Google provides built-in tools for calculations and conversions, eliminating the need to visit external websites. For example, a search for ‘calculator’ brings up a mathematical calculator in the SERPs.
Definitions: When searching for the meaning of a word, the dictionary definition is often displayed directly on the SERP.
Yes, with the rise of zero click, it could impact your website traffic, and here is why.
If a user finds the answer to their query by a featured snippet or AI overview directly in the SERPs, they don’t need to click through to your website if the information matches what they were looking for. In this case, this could cause a decrease in organic traffic to your site.
For certain industries, such as news and health, this could have a detrimental impact on site traffic unless you’re optimized for AI overviews and users click through to your site if they need more information.
If you’re a brand that is well optimized and has conversational content, great content experience, and is optimized for featured snippets, then you may experience an increase in organic traffic. However, some publishers report increased traffic from AI overview citations.
The expansion of AIOs, and their in-depth answers and size, takes up a whole lot of organic real estate.
Screenshot from search for [what is a featured snippet], Google, February 2025
Adapting To Zero-Click Marketing
Just because your site may experience a decline in clicks, don’t throw in the towel just yet. It’s time to adapt your SEO strategy, and of course, in today’s landscape, you have to be everywhere your audience is.
Brands need to stop thinking about Google and think about social networks like Reddit, Quora, TikTok, YouTube, and others, in addition to optimizing AI Overviews.
While AIOs may result in fewer clicks to your website, if you show up in AIO and someone does click on your website, they are probably more qualified and more likely to convert.
Increase In Traffic From AI Citations
Some brands are reporting an increase in traffic from AI citations because they show up as links within AIO citations.
An example of this would be a search for AI SEO software.
Notice that brands like Backlinko, benefit from a link in the AIO. This can generate more brand awareness and traffic because it is an authority domain and is well optimized for AIOs.
Screenshot from search for [ai seo software], Google, February 2025
Unlike paid traffic, traffic generated through organic search is still free and can provide long-term results for years to come.
Conversions are king if you have a site that depends upon converting website visitors to customers.
If your site depends upon growing the number of organic visitors, then traffic may be king based on your business model because it can increase members, drive up ad revenue, and increase subscriptions.
I spoke with a client the other day who said they got a lot of traffic from their SEO and paid search campaign. When I looked at the conversions, there were only a few over the last six months, and they are a lead-focused business.
If SEO is not driving leads and conversions and resulting in paying customers, then traffic does not matter. SEO is all about driving high-quality traffic that converts into customers.
Although, in most cases, zero-click traffic does not drive users directly to your website, you can reap the benefits of it if you show up as an AI citation or the answer to the snippet itself.
You can improve your brand awareness if you show up as the search results for zero-click results, resulting in more users recognizing your brand and potentially lift conversions.
While zero click results may not directly drive organic traffic to your site, demonstrating expertise and the authority gained from awareness can drive higher conversion rates when users do visit your site.
SEO Is Not Dead
SEO and organic traffic are not dead; it has just evolved.
With the rise of AI overviews and changing user behavior, end users are asking questions in social discovery channels like TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit as part of their search journey. And, you need to be everywhere your brand is.
SEO can no longer sit in a vacuum all by itself and must be a part of a fully integrated strategy,
To measure the success of zero click, your metrics should focus on:
Most of the main SEO tools provide good reporting to see if you can be visible for AI Overviews and zero-click searches.
Focus on impressions and conversions. As I mentioned, SEO is all about driving traffic that converts into customers.
See if you get more brand mentions and citations in AI overviews and featured snippets.
Wrapping Up
Optimizing zero-click is critical to being competitive today, especially as search engines refine their ability to answer user queries directly.
While zero-click searches are rising and becoming the new standard, especially where there are AI Overviews, SEO professionals and digital marketers must adapt and update strategies to focus on visibility, brand awareness, and providing value directly within search results and social platforms.
This is especially true as user behavior continues to change and users are expecting a faster, easier way to satisfy their information needs.
Google says it values the open web, and a current Googler confirmed in a private conversation at the recent Search Central Live in New York that the company, including CEO Sundar Pichai, cares about the web ecosystem. But that message is contradicted by an ex-Googler, who said Google internally regards sending traffic to publishers as “a necessary evil.”
Constant Evolution Of Google Search
Elizabeth Reid, VP of Search, is profiled in Bloomberg as the one responsible for major changes at Google search beginning in 2021, particularly AI Overviews. She was previously involved in Google Maps and is the one who revealed the existence of core topicality systems at Google.
Her statements about search show how it’s changing and give an idea of how publishers and SEOs should realign their perspectives. The main takeaway is that technology enables users to interact with information in different ways and search has to evolve with that to keep up with them. In her view, what’s happening is now a top-down approach to search where Google is imposing changes on users but rather it’s Google being responsive to users.
Her approach to search was said to be informed by her experience at Google Maps where Sergey Brin pushed the team to release Maps before they felt comfortable releasing it, teaching her that this enabled them to understand what users really wanted faster than had they waited longer.
“Reid refers to her approach as a “constant evolution” rather than a complete overhaul. Her team is still struggling to define the purpose of Google Search in this new era, according to interviews with 21 current and former search executives and employees…”
AI And Traditional Google Search
Google Search lost 20% of their search engineers who went over to focus on rolling out generative AI so perhaps it’s not surprising that she believes the search bar will lose prominence. According to the report:
“Reid predicts that the traditional Google search bar will become less prominent over time. Voice queries will continue to rise, she says, and Google is planning for expanded use of visual search, too.”
But she also said that the search bar isn’t going away:
“The search bar isn’t going away anytime soon, Reid says, but the company is moving toward a future in which Google is always hovering in the background. ‘The world will just expand,’ she says. ‘It’s as if you can ask Google as easily as you could ask a friend, only the friend is all-knowing, right?’”
Sending Traffic To Publishers Is A Necessary Evil
The article offers seemingly contradictory statements about how Google sees its relationship with the web ecosystem. An unnamed former Googler is quoted as saying that “giving” traffic to publishers is a necessary evil.
“Giving traffic to publisher sites is kind of a necessary evil. The main thing they’re trying to do is get people to consume Google services,” the former executive says. “So there’s a natural tendency to want to have people stay on Google pages, but it does diminish the sort of deal between the publishers and Google itself.”
What Current Googlers Say
At the Google Search Central Live event at New York City I had the opportunity to have a private conversation with a Googler about Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s inability to articulate what Google does to support the web ecosystem. The Googler told me that they’ve heard Sundar Pichai express a profound recognition of their relationship with publishers and said that it’s something he reflects on seriously.
That statement by the Googler was echoed in the article by something that Liz Reid and Sundar Pichai said:
“Reid says that Google cares deeply about publishers and that AI Overviews is a jumping-off point for users to conduct further research on the open web. Pichai, for his part, stresses the need to send ‘high-quality’ traffic to websites, instead of making users click around on sites that may not be relevant to them.
‘We are in the phase of making sure through this moment that we are improving the product, but in a way that prioritizes sending traffic to the ecosystem,’ he says, adding, ‘That’s been the most important goal.’”
Takeaways
Google is reshaping Search based on user behavior, not top-down mandates. But the fact that OpenAI’s ChatGPT pushed Google into rolling out their answer shows that other forces aside from user behaviors are in play as well.
Traditional search bar is becoming less central, replaced by voice (likely mobile devices) and visual search (also mobile). Google is multimodal, which means that it operates within multiple senses, like audio and visual. Publishers should really think hard about how that affects their business and how they can align it to also be multimodal so as to evolve along with users so that their content is already there when Google itself evolves to meet them there, too.
AI Overviews and possibly the Gemini Personal AI Assistant could signal a shift toward Google acting as an ambient presence, not a destination.
Google’s relationship with publishers has never been more strained. The disconnect between the public-facing statements and those by anonymous ex-Googlers send a signal that Google needs to be more out front with their relationship with publishers. For example, Google’s Search Central videos used to be interactive sessions with publishers, gradually drying up to scripted question and answers and now it’s completely gone. Although I believe what the Googler told me about Pichai’s regard for publishers because I know them to be truthful, the appearance that their search relations team has retreated behind closed doors sends a louder signal.
Google leadership emphasizes commitment to sending “high-quality traffic” to websites. But SEOs and publishers are freaking out that traffic is lower and the sentiment may be that Google should consider a little more give and a lot less take.
Hat tip to Glenn Gabe for calling attention to this article.
Why do we hear about medical breakthroughs in mice, but rarely see them translate into cures for human disease? Why do so few drugs that enter clinical trials receive regulatory approval? And why is the waiting list for organ transplantation so long? These challenges stem in large part from a common root cause: a severe shortage of ethically sourced human bodies.
It may be disturbing to characterize human bodies in such commodifying terms, but the unavoidable reality is that human biological materials are an essential commodity in medicine, and persistent shortages of these materials create a major bottleneck to progress.
This imbalance between supply and demand is the underlying cause of the organ shortage crisis, with more than 100,000 patients currently waiting for a solid organ transplant in the US alone. It also forces us to rely heavily on animals in medical research, a practice that can’t replicate major aspects of human physiology and makes it necessary to inflict harm on sentient creatures. In addition, the safety and efficacy of any experimental drug must still be confirmed in clinical trials on living human bodies. These costly trials risk harm to patients, can take a decade or longer to complete, and make it through to approval less than 15% of the time.
There might be a way to get out of this moral and scientific deadlock. Recent advances in biotechnology now provide a pathway to producing living human bodies without the neural components that allow us to think, be aware, or feel pain. Many will find this possibility disturbing, but if researchers and policymakers can find a way to pull these technologies together, we may one day be able to create “spare” bodies, both human and nonhuman.
These could revolutionize medical research and drug development, greatly reducing the need for animal testing, rescuing many people from organ transplant lists, and allowing us to produce more effective drugs and treatments. All without crossing most people’s ethical lines.
Bringing technologies together
Although it may seem like science fiction, recent technological progress has pushed this concept into the realm of plausibility. Pluripotent stem cells, one of the earliest cell types to form during development, can give rise to every type of cell in the adult body. Recently, researchers have used these stem cells to create structures that seem to mimic the early development of actual human embryos. At the same time, artificial uterus technology is rapidly advancing, and other pathways may be opening to allow for the development of fetuses outside of the body.
Such technologies, together with established genetic techniques to inhibit brain development, make it possible to envision the creation of “bodyoids”—a potentially unlimited source of human bodies, developed entirely outside of a human body from stem cells, that lack sentience or the ability to feel pain.
There are still many technical roadblocks to achieving this vision, but we have reason to expect that bodyoids could radically transform biomedical research by addressing critical limitations in the current models of research, drug development, and medicine. Among many other benefits, they would offer an almost unlimited source of organs, tissues, and cells for use in transplantation.
It could even be possible to generate organs directly from a patient’s own cells, essentially cloning someone’s biological material to ensure that transplanted tissues are a perfect immunological match and thus eliminating the need for lifelong immunosuppression. Bodyoids developed from a patient’s cells could also allow for personalized screening of drugs, allowing physicians to directly assess the effect of different interventions in a biological model that accurately reflects a patient’s own personal genetics and physiology. We can even envision using animal bodyoids in agriculture, as a substitute for the use of sentient animal species.
Of course, exciting possibilities are not certainties. We do not know whether the embryo models recently created from stem cells could give rise to living people or, thus far, even to living mice. We do not know when, or whether, an effective technique will be found for successfully gestating human bodies entirely outside a person. We cannot be sure whether such bodyoids can survive without ever having developed brains or the parts of brains associated with consciousness, or whether they would still serve as accurate models for living people without those brain functions.
Even if it all works, it may not be practical or economical to “grow” bodyoids, possibly for many years, until they can be mature enough to be useful for our ends. Each of these questions will require substantial research and time. But we believe this idea is now plausible enough to justify discussing both the technical feasibility and the ethical implications.
Ethical considerations and societal implications
Bodyoids could address many ethical problems in modern medicine, offering ways to avoid unnecessary pain and suffering. For example, they could offer an ethical alternative to the way we currently use nonhuman animals for research and food, providing meat or other products with no animal suffering or awareness.
But when we come to human bodyoids, the issues become harder. Many will find the concept grotesque or appalling. And for good reason. We have an innate respect for human life in all its forms. We do not allow broad research on people who no longer have consciousness or, in some cases, never had it.
At the same time, we know much can be gained from studying the human body. We learn much from the bodies of the dead, which these days are used for teaching and research only with consent. In laboratories, we study cells and tissues that were taken, with consent, from the bodies of the dead and the living.
Recently we have even begun using for experiments the “animated cadavers” of people who have been declared legally dead, who have lost all brain function but whose other organs continue to function with mechanical assistance. Genetically modified pig kidneys have been connected to, or transplanted into, these legally dead but physiologically active cadavers to help researchers determine whether they would work in living people.
In all these cases, nothing was, legally, a living human being at the time it was used for research. Human bodyoids would also fall into that category. But there are still a number of issues worth considering. The first is consent: The cells used to make bodyoids would have to come from someone, and we’d have to make sure that this someone consented to this particular, likely controversial, use. But perhaps the deepest issue is that bodyoids might diminish the human status of real people who lack consciousness or sentience.
Thus far, we have held to a standard that requires us to treat all humans born alive as people, entitled to life and respect. Would bodyoids—created without pregnancy, parental hopes, or indeed parents—blur that line? Or would we consider a bodyoid a human being, entitled to the same respect? If so, why—just because it looks like us? A sufficiently detailed mannequin can meet that test. Because it looks like us and is alive? Because it is alive and has our DNA? These are questions that will require careful thought.
A call to action
Until recently, the idea of making something like a bodyoid would have been relegated to the realms of science fiction and philosophical speculation. But now it is at least plausible—and possibly revolutionary. It is time for it to be explored.
The potential benefits—for both human patients and sentient animal species—are great. Governments, companies, and private foundations should start thinking about bodyoids as a possible path for investment. There is no need to start with humans—we can begin exploring the feasibility of this approach with rodents or other research animals.
As we proceed, the ethical and social issues are at least as important as the scientific ones. Just because something can be done does not mean it should be done. Even if it looks possible, determining whether we should make bodyoids, nonhuman or human, will require considerable thought, discussion, and debate. Some of that will be by scientists, ethicists, and others with special interest or knowledge. But ultimately, the decisions will be made by societies and governments.
The time to start those discussions is now, when a scientific pathway seems clear enough for us to avoid pure speculation but before the world is presented with a troubling surprise. The announcement of the birth of Dolly the cloned sheep back in the 1990s launched a hysterical reaction, complete with speculation about armies of cloned warrior slaves. Good decisions require more preparation.
The path toward realizing the potential of bodyoids will not be without challenges; indeed, it may never be possible to get there, or even if it is possible, the path may never be taken. Caution is warranted, but so is bold vision; the opportunity is too important to ignore.
Carsten T. Charlesworth is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (ISCBRM) at Stanford University.
Henry T. Greely is the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law and director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford University.
Hiromitsu Nakauchi is a professor of genetics and an ISCBRM faculty member at Stanford University and a distinguished university professor at the Institute of Science Tokyo.
Why do we hear about medical breakthroughs in mice, but rarely see them translate into cures for human disease? Why do so few drugs that enter clinical trials receive regulatory approval? And why is the waiting list for organ transplantation so long? These challenges stem in large part from a common root cause: a severe shortage of ethically sourced human bodies.
It may be disturbing to characterize human bodies in such commodifying terms, but the unavoidable reality is that human biological materials are an essential commodity in medicine, and persistent shortages of these materials create a major bottleneck to progress.
This imbalance between supply and demand is the underlying cause of the organ shortage crisis, with more than 100,000 patients currently waiting for a solid organ transplant in the US alone. It also forces us to rely heavily on animals in medical research, a practice that can’t replicate major aspects of human physiology and makes it necessary to inflict harm on sentient creatures. In addition, the safety and efficacy of any experimental drug must still be confirmed in clinical trials on living human bodies. These costly trials risk harm to patients, can take a decade or longer to complete, and make it through to approval less than 15% of the time.
There might be a way to get out of this moral and scientific deadlock. Recent advances in biotechnology now provide a pathway to producing living human bodies without the neural components that allow us to think, be aware, or feel pain. Many will find this possibility disturbing, but if researchers and policymakers can find a way to pull these technologies together, we may one day be able to create “spare” bodies, both human and nonhuman.
These could revolutionize medical research and drug development, greatly reducing the need for animal testing, rescuing many people from organ transplant lists, and allowing us to produce more effective drugs and treatments. All without crossing most people’s ethical lines.
Bringing technologies together
Although it may seem like science fiction, recent technological progress has pushed this concept into the realm of plausibility. Pluripotent stem cells, one of the earliest cell types to form during development, can give rise to every type of cell in the adult body. Recently, researchers have used these stem cells to create structures that seem to mimic the early development of actual human embryos. At the same time, artificial uterus technology is rapidly advancing, and other pathways may be opening to allow for the development of fetuses outside of the body.
Such technologies, together with established genetic techniques to inhibit brain development, make it possible to envision the creation of “bodyoids”—a potentially unlimited source of human bodies, developed entirely outside of a human body from stem cells, that lack sentience or the ability to feel pain.
There are still many technical roadblocks to achieving this vision, but we have reason to expect that bodyoids could radically transform biomedical research by addressing critical limitations in the current models of research, drug development, and medicine. Among many other benefits, they would offer an almost unlimited source of organs, tissues, and cells for use in transplantation.
It could even be possible to generate organs directly from a patient’s own cells, essentially cloning someone’s biological material to ensure that transplanted tissues are a perfect immunological match and thus eliminating the need for lifelong immunosuppression. Bodyoids developed from a patient’s cells could also allow for personalized screening of drugs, allowing physicians to directly assess the effect of different interventions in a biological model that accurately reflects a patient’s own personal genetics and physiology. We can even envision using animal bodyoids in agriculture, as a substitute for the use of sentient animal species.
Of course, exciting possibilities are not certainties. We do not know whether the embryo models recently created from stem cells could give rise to living people or, thus far, even to living mice. We do not know when, or whether, an effective technique will be found for successfully gestating human bodies entirely outside a person. We cannot be sure whether such bodyoids can survive without ever having developed brains or the parts of brains associated with consciousness, or whether they would still serve as accurate models for living people without those brain functions.
Even if it all works, it may not be practical or economical to “grow” bodyoids, possibly for many years, until they can be mature enough to be useful for our ends. Each of these questions will require substantial research and time. But we believe this idea is now plausible enough to justify discussing both the technical feasibility and the ethical implications.
Ethical considerations and societal implications
Bodyoids could address many ethical problems in modern medicine, offering ways to avoid unnecessary pain and suffering. For example, they could offer an ethical alternative to the way we currently use nonhuman animals for research and food, providing meat or other products with no animal suffering or awareness.
But when we come to human bodyoids, the issues become harder. Many will find the concept grotesque or appalling. And for good reason. We have an innate respect for human life in all its forms. We do not allow broad research on people who no longer have consciousness or, in some cases, never had it.
At the same time, we know much can be gained from studying the human body. We learn much from the bodies of the dead, which these days are used for teaching and research only with consent. In laboratories, we study cells and tissues that were taken, with consent, from the bodies of the dead and the living.
Recently we have even begun using for experiments the “animated cadavers” of people who have been declared legally dead, who have lost all brain function but whose other organs continue to function with mechanical assistance. Genetically modified pig kidneys have been connected to, or transplanted into, these legally dead but physiologically active cadavers to help researchers determine whether they would work in living people.
In all these cases, nothing was, legally, a living human being at the time it was used for research. Human bodyoids would also fall into that category. But there are still a number of issues worth considering. The first is consent: The cells used to make bodyoids would have to come from someone, and we’d have to make sure that this someone consented to this particular, likely controversial, use. But perhaps the deepest issue is that bodyoids might diminish the human status of real people who lack consciousness or sentience.
Thus far, we have held to a standard that requires us to treat all humans born alive as people, entitled to life and respect. Would bodyoids—created without pregnancy, parental hopes, or indeed parents—blur that line? Or would we consider a bodyoid a human being, entitled to the same respect? If so, why—just because it looks like us? A sufficiently detailed mannequin can meet that test. Because it looks like us and is alive? Because it is alive and has our DNA? These are questions that will require careful thought.
A call to action
Until recently, the idea of making something like a bodyoid would have been relegated to the realms of science fiction and philosophical speculation. But now it is at least plausible—and possibly revolutionary. It is time for it to be explored.
The potential benefits—for both human patients and sentient animal species—are great. Governments, companies, and private foundations should start thinking about bodyoids as a possible path for investment. There is no need to start with humans—we can begin exploring the feasibility of this approach with rodents or other research animals.
As we proceed, the ethical and social issues are at least as important as the scientific ones. Just because something can be done does not mean it should be done. Even if it looks possible, determining whether we should make bodyoids, nonhuman or human, will require considerable thought, discussion, and debate. Some of that will be by scientists, ethicists, and others with special interest or knowledge. But ultimately, the decisions will be made by societies and governments.
The time to start those discussions is now, when a scientific pathway seems clear enough for us to avoid pure speculation but before the world is presented with a troubling surprise. The announcement of the birth of Dolly the cloned sheep back in the 1990s launched a hysterical reaction, complete with speculation about armies of cloned warrior slaves. Good decisions require more preparation.
The path toward realizing the potential of bodyoids will not be without challenges; indeed, it may never be possible to get there, or even if it is possible, the path may never be taken. Caution is warranted, but so is bold vision; the opportunity is too important to ignore.
Carsten T. Charlesworth is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (ISCBRM) at Stanford University.
Henry T. Greely is the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law and director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford University.
Hiromitsu Nakauchi is a professor of genetics and an ISCBRM faculty member at Stanford University and a distinguished university professor at the Institute of Science Tokyo.
A few weeks ago, when I was at the digital rights conference RightsCon in Taiwan, I watched in real time as civil society organizations from around the world, including the US, grappled with the loss of one of the biggest funders of global digital rights work: the United States government.
As I wrote in my dispatch, the Trump administration’s shocking, rapid gutting of the US government (and its push into what some prominent political scientists call “competitive authoritarianism”) also affects the operations and policies of American tech companies—many of which, of course, have users far beyond US borders. People at RightsCon said they were already seeing changes in these companies’ willingness to engage with and invest in communities that have smaller user bases—especially non-English-speaking ones.
As a result, some policymakers and business leaders—in Europe, in particular—are reconsidering their reliance on US-based tech and asking whether they can quickly spin up better, homegrown alternatives. This is particularly true for AI.
One of the clearest examples of this is in social media. Yasmin Curzi, a Brazilian law professor who researches domestic tech policy, put it to me this way: “Since Trump’s second administration, we cannot count on [American social media platforms] to do even the bare minimum anymore.”
Social media content moderation systems—which already use automation and are also experimenting with deploying large language models to flag problematic posts—are failing to detect gender-based violence in places as varied as India, South Africa, and Brazil. If platforms begin to rely even more on LLMs for content moderation, this problem will likely get worse, says Marlena Wisniak, a human rights lawyer who focuses on AI governance at the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law. “The LLMs are moderated poorly, and the poorly moderated LLMs are then also used to moderate other content,” she tells me. “It’s so circular, and the errors just keep repeating and amplifying.”
Part of the problem is that the systems are trained primarily on data from the English-speaking world (and American English at that), and as a result, they perform less well with local languages and context.
Even multilingual language models, which are meant to process multiple languages at once, still perform poorly with non-Western languages. For instance, one evaluation of ChatGPT’s response to health-care queries found that results were far worse in Chinese and Hindi, which are less well represented in North American data sets, than in English and Spanish.
For many at RightsCon, this validates their calls for more community-driven approaches to AI—both in and out of the social media context. These could include small language models, chatbots, and data sets designed for particular uses and specific to particular languages and cultural contexts. These systems could be trained to recognize slang usages and slurs, interpret words or phrases written in a mix of languages and even alphabets, and identify “reclaimed language” (onetime slurs that the targeted group has decided to embrace). All of these tend to be missed or miscategorized by language models and automated systems trained primarily on Anglo-American English. The founder of the startup Shhor AI, for example, hosted a panel at RightsCon and talked about its new content moderation API focused on Indian vernacular languages.
Still, this moment feels a little different. The second Trump administration, which shapes the actions and policies of American tech companies, is obviously a major factor. But there are others at play.
First, recent research and development on language models has reached the point where data set size is no longer a predictor of performance, meaning that more people can create them. In fact, “smaller language models might be worthy competitors of multilingual language models in specific, low-resource languages,” says Aliya Bhatia, a visiting fellow at the Center for Democracy & Technology who researches automated content moderation.
Then there’s the global landscape. AI competition was a major theme of the recent Paris AI Summit, which took place the week before RightsCon. Since then, there’s been a steadystream of announcements about “sovereign AI” initiatives that aim to give a country (or organization) full control over all aspects of AI development.
AI sovereignty is just one part of the desire for broader “tech sovereignty” that’s also been gaining steam, growing out of more sweeping concerns about the privacy and security of data transferred to the United States. The European Union appointed its first commissioner for tech sovereignty, security, and democracy last November and has been working on plans for a “Euro Stack,” or “digital public infrastructure.” The definition of this is still somewhat fluid, but it could include the energy, water, chips, cloud services, software, data, and AI needed to support modern society and future innovation. All these are largely provided by US tech companies today. Europe’s efforts are partly modeled after “India Stack,” that country’s digital infrastructure that includes the biometric identity system Aadhaar. Just last week, Dutch lawmakers passed several motions to untangle the country from US tech providers.
This all fits in with what Andy Yen, CEO of the Switzerland-based digital privacy company Proton, told me at RightsCon. Trump, he said, is “causing Europe to move faster … to come to the realization that Europe needs to regain its tech sovereignty.” This is partly because of the leverage that the president has over tech CEOs, Yen said, and also simply “because tech is where the future economic growth of any country is.”
But just because governments get involved doesn’t mean that issues around inclusion in language models will go away. “I think there needs to be guardrails about what the role of the government here is. Where it gets tricky is if the government decides ‘These are the languages we want to advance’ or ‘These are the types of views we want represented in a data set,’” Bhatia says. “Fundamentally, the training data a model trains on is akin to the worldview it develops.”
It’s still too early to know what this will all look like, and how much of it will prove to be hype. But no matter what happens, this is a space we’ll be watching.
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here.
