In January, Google laid off hundreds of workers as it shifted its investments and focus to AI development. The tech giant is not alone; brands like UPS and Duolingo, to name a few, are doing the same thing.
Is this a new trend, or is it something to be really concerned about?
Let’s explore how AI is unlikely to replace SEO specialists completely, but it will certainly transform how we work.
A Closer Look At How AI Is Transforming The Field Of SEO
Before AI went mainstream, much SEO work was manual and required much time to perform certain tasks.
For example, optimizing a landing page could take thirty minutes to a couple of hours, depending on your experience and skill level.
Producing a content strategy took a good amount of time (i.e., a week or more), depending on the site, competition, search engine results pages (SERPs), etc. But now, with AI, SEO pros can do things quickly and more efficiently.
Here’s how AI can help us become more efficient. But be careful to also acknowledge the limitations of AI. A humanized approach, incorporating AI where appropriate, is a win-win situation.
Enhancement Of Tools To Drive Better Efficiency
AI has definitely enhanced some of the tools we use to perform our jobs, making tasks like keyword research, competitor analysis, and content optimization more efficient and effective.
AI algorithms can process copious amounts of data faster than humans, providing insights that can inform our SEO strategies.
For example, AI tools can help SEO specialists discover new keyword opportunities, analyze the performance of their content, and identify gaps and areas for improvement more quickly and easily than we previously did in the past.
AI tools can also automate some tedious and repetitive tasks that SEO specialists perform, such as generating titles and metadata, checking for broken links, optimizing images, finding the semantic relationships between keywords, identifying search trends, and predicting user behavior.
Content Creation And Optimization
One of the biggest benefits I have seen with AI is that it is particularly good at ideating content topics and even helping to draft content.
However, human oversight is crucial to ensure the content remains high-quality, accurate, and relevant to users while adhering to brand voice and E-E-A-T principles.
AI tools can help SEO specialists generate content ideas based on user intent, search trends, and competitor analysis. They can also help provide suggestions for headlines, subheadings, images, content briefs, and links.
Humans must still create and review content to avoid potential legal and ethical issues, negative PR outcomes, and factual inaccuracies. With the March update, Google took aim at “scaled content abuse” and applied manual actions to many websites producing a large amount of AI content without human input.
SEO and content editors still need to review, edit, and approve any output from generative AI tools to ensure that it meets the expectations and needs of their target audience.
You can’t just take the content from your AI platform – not make it useful, relevant, factual – and hope it will rank because it probably won’t, especially for competitive phrases.
Changing The SEO Landscape
With the rise of AI and AI powering Google’s Search Generative Experiences (SGE), SEO could potentially go through one of the biggest changes that ever happened to the industry.
As search engines increasingly use AI to refine their algorithms, SEO specialists need to adapt their strategies. AI can help them stay ahead of these changes by predicting trends and identifying new optimization opportunities, such as SGE snippets.
For example, AI tools can help SEO specialists not only monitor and analyze the impact of algorithm updates, but also provide recommendations for adjusting SEO tactics accordingly. They can also help leverage new features and formats that search engines introduce, such as SGE featured snippets.
By leveraging AI tools, SEO specialists can optimize content for these new formats, increasing their chances of ranking higher and attracting more qualified traffic to their clients and their own sites. This success hinges on interpreting the data and putting together a winning SEO strategy.
Human Insight And Creativity
Despite the advancements in AI, human insight and creativity remain essential. Understanding audience needs, crafting compelling messages, and strategic thinking are areas where humans excel and are critical in SEO.
AI tools can provide data and insights but cannot replace the human ability to interpret and apply them.
SEO specialists still need to use their judgment and experience to decide which SEO strategies and tactics are best suited for their goals and context.
They also need to use their creativity and storytelling skills to create content that engages and persuades their audience and builds trust and loyalty.
AI tools cannot replicate the human emotion and connection vital for a successful SEO strategy.
Ethical Considerations And Best Practices
AI tools must be used responsibly and in accordance with search engine guidelines. SEO specialists play a key role in ensuring the ethical use of AI and adherence to best practices to avoid penalties.
As SEO professionals, we need to be aware of the potential risks and challenges of using AI tools, such as data privacy, bias, and quality issues. We also must ensure that the data we use and the content we generate with AI tools are accurate, relevant, and trustworthy.
AI’s Enhancements And Boundaries In SEO
AI has certainly made it easier and more efficient to complete SEO tasks, such as on-page optimization and coding, which frees up some of our time to work on strategic growth opportunities.
These advancements are not perfect and do have some limitations, including:
AI is dependent on being trained on pre-existing information and data. It lacks the ability to innovate beyond known information unless it has been trained on it.
The lack of human experience and wisdom. AI cannot match the nuanced understanding and contextual insight in a way that experienced SEO professionals do.
Requirement for direct inputs. AI’s effectiveness is contingent on the quality of the inputs it receives, and it can struggle with subtle strategy shifts that we humans can easily navigate.
Wrapping Up
AI will continue to become an invaluable tool for SEO specialists, but it won’t replace the need for human expertise, creativity, and strategic thinking.
The role of SEO specialists will evolve, with a greater emphasis on managing and interpreting AI-generated data and insights – and less on manual and repetitive tasks that the machines can now do with human oversight.
SEO specialists who actively learn and embrace AI with a human-centric approach to refine their skill sets will gain a competitive edge and a brighter future in the SEO industry.
Research by BrightEdge shows that traffic is surging to Perplexity and where the opportunities lie for optimizing for traffic, particularly for ecommerce .
What Is Perplexity AI?
Perplexity is a self-described Answer Engine founded by researchers and engineers from OpenAI, Facebook, Quora, Microsoft, and Databricks. It has backing from many of the most influential investors and engineers in Silicon Valley which has helped to propel it as one of the top innovators in the new wave AI search engines.
Perplexity contains an index that is ranked by their own version of PageRank. It’s a combination of a search engine and a chatbot, with the chatbot part serving as the interface for receiving queries and the AI part on the backend. But it’s retains the functionality of a chatbot in that it can perform tasks like write an essay.
What sets Perplexity.ai apart from competitors, as will be shown below, is that Perplexity shows generous amounts of citations to websites.
Surge In Traffic
One of the key insights from the BrightEdge research is that Perplexity.ai has surged in referral traffic by a whopping 40% since January, indicating that users are interested in trying something different from the usual ten blue links.
Using their proprietary BrightEdge Generative Parser they were able to detect AI search experiences which showed that users are fine with an AI search engine.
The takeaway here is that the search marketing industry is right back to where it was over two decades ago when Google first appeared. SEOs like myself and others were testing to see what activities were useful and which were not.
Most people in search came into it when the technology was relatively mature and don’t know what it’s like to confront the unknown or even how to do it. The only difference between then and now is that today we know about research papers and patents. Back then we had no idea until roughly 2005.
BrightEdge’s report reflected on this period of transition:
“For marketers, who rely on organic search strategies to reach customers, new AI-first search engines like Perplexity and ChatGPT signal a tectonic shift in how brands market and sell their products. However, the newness of these AI-driven platforms means they frequently undergo dynamic changes, making them difficult to track and adapt to.”
In an ad supported model the organic search results competes with advertising for the most valuable search queries but that’s not the case with Perplexity. BrightEdge sees Perplexity as an opportunity for search marketers because it is an ad-free model that sends organic search traffic.
Overlap With Google Search Generative Experience (SGE)
An interesting data point surfaced in BrightEdge’s research is that there was a “significant” overlap between Perplexity’s search results and that of Google’s SGE results. Perhaps not surprisingly, the strongest overlap was in health related search queries, likely because there’s a limited number of sites that are qualified to create content on health and medical topics.
But what may sound discouraging is that Reddit shows up across most search query topics except for healthcare and finance, two YMYL (your money/your life) topics.
Overlap In B2B Search Results
Another area of overlap with Google’s SGE is due to Perplexity’s tendency to rank authoritative sites in topics like Healthcare and Education and in review and local search sites in relation to Restaurants and Travel. Big brands like Yelp and TripAdvisor are winners in Perplexity.
Overlap In Travel Search Results
Yahoo, MarketWatch and CNN are frequently seen in finance related search queries..
There is less overlap in for eCommerce queries apart from Wikipedia and Amazon, which both search engines rank.
According to BrightEdge:
“Google uses Quora and Consumer Reporters for third-party product information, while Perplexity references Reddit. Overall, Perplexity is most likely to reference product sites, whereas Google SGE will also include informational resources such as lifestyle and news sites.”
That’s good news for ecommerce sites that sell actual products, an actual bright spot.
BrightEdge cites the following opportunities with Perplexity:
Perplexity’s share of search growth rate is rising at a rate of 39% per month.
Perplexity’s search results offer an average of 5.28 website citations.
Perplexity AI shows more citations in Travel and Restaurant queries than Google SGE.
BrightEdge encourages search marketers to take advantage of opportunities in optimizing for AI-driven search engines.
Jim Yu, Founder and Executive Chairman of BrightEdge, said:
“Optimizing emerging search platforms is essential for marketers because their impact will be seismic – just 1% of the global organic search market equates to approximately $1.2B in ad revenue per year… AI-first engines are steadily gaining ground and carving out their own areas of expertise, making it critical for the marketing community to master multiple search platforms.
There is too much revenue at stake to get left behind, which is why we’re closely tracking the development of these engines and all things AI search – from traffic trends and queries to result quality and more.”
Read more about optimizing for Perplexity at BrightEdge:
Generative AI is already making a significant impact on advertising, creating pressure on advertisers to reassess their strategies and explore alternative ways to reach target audiences.
One prominent debate within this space centers around the effectiveness of human copywriting versus AI-generated ad copy.
Both sides claim the crown for crafting compelling messaging that drives clicks and conversions. However, the question remains: What truly resonates with audiences in the digital age?
The Click-Through Conundrum: A Deeper Dive Into The AI Debate
They reveal which messages entice users to engage with the advertised product or service and at what cost.
Our recent study at Hop Skip Media delves deeper into these metrics to shed light on the power of human copywriting in advertising.
Methodology: Decoding The Data With Carefully Defined Parameters
For our study, we utilized Copy AI, a popular AI-powered copy-generation platform. We chose Copy AI due to its widespread use and positive user reviews within the advertising industry.
The ad’s target audience was business owners and marketing managers looking for pay-per-click advertising services. The focus product/service advertised was our services at Hop Skip Media.
We designed a controlled test with one responsive search ad (RSA) sample size per copywriter (human and AI). This format allowed for a comprehensive content comparison across various headlines and descriptions.
Each ad contained 15 headlines and four descriptions, following the best practices for the RSA structure recommended by Google Ads. The ads were then placed on Google search via Google Ads for a duration of eight weeks. We allocated a total budget of $500*.
* We acknowledge that these two factors were limitations in our study and have plans to redo this study in 2024 with a larger budget and longer timeline.
Results: Human Copywriting Beats AI-Generated Ads – Exploring The Numbers In Detail
The results clearly show that human-written ads significantly outperformed AI-generated ones. Let’s delve deeper into the key metrics:
Metric
AI-Generated Ads
Human-Written Ads
Clicks
26
65
Impressions
713
1,306
CTR
3.65%
4.98%
Average CPC
$6.05
$4.85
The human-written ads achieved 45.41% more impressions and 60% more clicks, resulting in a significantly higher CTR of 1.33%.
This suggests that the human-written ad copy resonated more effectively with the target audience, prompting them to engage with the ad at a higher rate.
Furthermore, the human-written ads boasted a lower average cost per click, indicating potentially greater efficiency in acquiring clicks.
These findings highlight the human copywriters’ effectiveness in crafting compelling ad copy that drives clicks and potentially leads to conversions.
Analysis: Why Humans Outperform AI – Unpacking The Reasons Behind The Results
Several factors likely contribute to the observed differences in performance between human-written and AI-generated copy:
They can tap into cultural nuances and tailor messaging to resonate on multiple levels, creating a deeper connection with potential customers.
While continuously evolving, AI still struggles with this level of nuanced understanding.
2. The Power Of Creativity And Emotional Appeal
Humans possess greater creativity and can craft messages that evoke emotional responses, humor, or a sense of urgency – all of which can significantly improve ad effectiveness.
AI, while adept at generating various text formats, often struggles with the subtle nuances of language and cultural references that resonate with audiences on an emotional level.
This can lead to generic ad copy lacking the emotional appeal necessary for click-throughs.
3. Training Data Quality And The Evolving Landscape Of AI
The effectiveness of AI-generated content hinges largely on the quality of the training data it is fed.
Limited data or biases within the data can lead to subpar outputs that miss the mark. Additionally, the capabilities of AI tools themselves are still evolving.
While advancements are promising, there’s room for improvement in their ability to replicate human copywriters’ creativity and emotional intelligence.
By providing them with high-quality training data, in-depth information about the target audience and product/service, and careful human review and editing, they can offer valuable support to human copywriters.
We should also point out that Google’s Gemini (formerly Bard) and other large language models (LLMs) pointing to Google’s platform data were not available at the time of the study, which could be a limiter to Copy AI’s performance with this experiment.
4. The Importance Of Context And Adaptability
Humans excel at adapting their messaging to specific contexts and platforms.
They can tailor ad copy for different demographics and online behavior patterns, and even adjust based on real-time campaign performance data.
While AI is improving in its ability to adapt, it still struggles to replicate the level of flexibility and context awareness that human copywriters possess.
Optimizing The AI Advantage: Tips For Success And Responsible Use
While our study highlights the limitations of AI in crafting truly impactful ad copy, these tools still offer benefits when used strategically as long as you take the following into account to get the most out of them:
1. High-Quality Training Data
Ensure Copy AI or the AI tool of your choice is trained on a comprehensive and diverse dataset of high-quality ad copy relevant to your industry and target audience.
This will feed the AI with the necessary information to generate more relevant and impactful outputs.
2. Detailed Audience And Product/Service Information
Provide the AI tool with as much specific information as possible about your target audience, product/service, and marketing objectives. The more information you provide, the better the AI can tailor its suggestions to your specific needs.
3. Careful Review And Manual Editing
Never rely solely on AI-generated copy. Always review the outputs critically, edit for clarity and emotional appeal, and ensure alignment with your brand voice and messaging.
While Google recently introduced generative AI for Performance Max campaigns in the United States, it’s important to note that the rollout is currently limited and will reach other countries later in 2024.
Google rolls out features with a phased approach, allowing them to gather data and refine the feature before making it broadly available.
Also, it’s important to be mindful that Google will likely prioritize and showcase the content it generates through AI during the initial rollout.
This could potentially impact the initial performance data you see for your campaigns, as Google’s AI-generated content might receive more prominent placement compared to the content you’ve manually created.
Because of this, monitoring campaign performance over time is crucial, allowing Google’s AI to learn and adapt while observing how your own manually created content performs.
Ethical Considerations: A Note of Responsibility In The Age Of AI-Generated Content
As with any technology, ethical considerations are paramount when utilizing AI-generated ad copy. Using this technology responsibly is crucial to ensure:
Additionally, be transparent with consumers about using AI in your ad creation process if applicable.
2. Avoiding Deception And Manipulation
AI-generated content should never be used to deceive or manipulate consumers. The MIT Technology Review discovered that users are 3% less likely to spot false information in an AI-generated tweet than humans.
Although the credibility gap is small, it is concerning as that gap is likely to grow significantly. Ensure the messaging is clear and truthful and avoids any misleading claims.
Conclusion: The Human Touch Endures – A Look Toward The Future Of Advertising
Though narrow, this study clarifies the broader value of human copywriters in advertising.
Their ability to understand audiences on a deeper level, craft emotionally engaging narratives, and adapt to specific contexts remain unmatched by AI.
While AI continues evolving and offers valuable support when used strategically, the human touch will likely remain crucial in crafting ad copy that carries cultural and sensory nuance, leading to better interactions.
As the field progresses, further research and exploration will be key to understanding how AI can best complement and enhance human creativity in advertising.
Additionally, responsible and ethical use of AI-generated content should remain a top priority as this technology continues to play a growing role in advertising.
ChatGPT announced that as of today it is rolling out the ability for anyone to use it without having to sign up or log into the service. Aside from some missing features, the exact same functionality is available in the free service that was previously available to users who signed up for a free account.
Mainstream media is going to talk about how it uses data for training but that’s not the big news here. What’s significant is that it is one step in the direction of eating Google’s lunch by fulfilling Google’s own mission statement that prescribes organizing “the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
Use ChatGPT Instantly
OpenAI is rolling out availability of ChatGPT 3.5 to the public on an instant basis without having to sign in or register with the service. Using ChatGPT is now as easy as using a search engine like Google.
The announcement explained:
“Starting today, you can use ChatGPT instantly, without needing to sign-up. We’re rolling this out gradually, with the aim to make AI accessible to anyone curious about its capabilities.”
Shared Content May Be Used For Training
OpenAI noted that content that’s shared in ChatGPT may be used for training the model but that there is a way to turn this off through the Settings.
But at the moment there is no clear way to access those settings for turning off using the content for training in the instant ChatGPT.
The official statement on data use:
“We may use what you provide to ChatGPT to improve our models for everyone. If you’d like, you can turn this off through your Settings – whether you create an account or not. Learn more about how we use content to train our models and your choices in our Help Center.”
There is also a notice beneath the chat window:
“By sending a message, you agree to our Terms. Read our Privacy Policy. Don’t share sensitive info. Chats may be reviewed and used to train our models. Learn about your choices.”
Using Instant ChatGPT Means Agreement For Data Use
Additional Safeguards
OpenAI also announced additional guardrails to keep the free version safer than the other versions. For example, OpenAI said that is is blocking output from a wider range of topics.
What’s Missing In The Free Account
OpenAI listed the benefits of creating a free or paid account which are not available in the instant chat version.
Unavailable features:
Cannot save or review chat history
Cannot share chats
No access to voice instructions
No access to custom instructions
Prelude To Competing Against Google?
The obvious question is if this is a step in the direction of creating an alternative to using a search engine, replacing Google’s business model with an entirely new way to find information.
Free instant chat fulfills Google’s mission statement to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” in a way that Google search does not. So it’s not an unreasonable question to ask.
Think of it as a chatbot — but Google’s organic search results power it.
Every indexed webpage that crosses a search engine results page (SERP) helps teach SGE what it knows.
As exciting (and partly terrifying) as the feature is, you may be trying to understand its true potential to leverage it for your businesses.
How Does Google SGE Work?
SGE offers comprehensive answers to search queries, just like Open AI’s ChatGPT, but SGE cites sources.
To see SGE in action:
Navigate to Google to begin a search.
Enter a search query or question into the search bar.
Watch as multiple search results are written as a conversational response to your question.
Context and more information are added to your result through SGE, especially when compared to the old featured snippets, which only displayed a snippet or sentence without its full context.
Screenshot from Google for [conversational analytics] using normal search and SGE, February 2024
As you can see, pre-SGE days allowed you to sift through multiple websites, giving each result traffic to their respective webpages.
Now, SGE takes up the space where direct webpage results used to display, meaning that many websites may no longer get the traffic they used to get.
How Will SGE Change How Google Search Works?
As you can imagine, many SEO experts believe SGE will eat into organic traffic from top-of-funnel queries.
There are three key reasons for a potential drop in organic traffic from SERPs:
Featured snippets only offer one clickable source, while SGE offers many. If you owned the top position, you may now be sharing clicks with multiple sources.
SGE takes up too much space on the SERPs, pushing the traditional SERP below the fold, resulting in fewer clicks.
You can ask follow-up questions right, which keeps searchers on the SERP instead of traveling to a site for more information.
That said, there is still potential for pages to get traffic as long as the content answers the query.
However, you should adapt your strategy as SGE emerges from its experimental phase.
A recent study found that 49% of consumers are interested in AI-powered searches, indicating that AI-generated SERPs are perceived positively.
If Google wants to stay competitive, especially with Bing Search’s hard comeback last year, SGE will eventually be a permanent part of the SERPs.
What SEO Experts Have To Say About SGE’s Impact On Digital Marketing
Many businesses, like yours, rely on Google for their revenue. Whether that’s in the form of ads or organic results, SGE is set to disrupt both of these formats.
How SGE Impacts Organic Traffic
On the organic side, achieving the top 3 positions could lead to lackluster results.
How SGE Impacts PPC
On the advertising end, you might be safe, as Sponsored results appear above SGE.
However, that only pushes organic results even further down.
Screenshot from Google for [monday competitors], February 2024
Some experts believe SGE to be like Featured Snippets but on steroids. Ihor Rudnyk, CEO of Collaborator, explains:
We saw sites that gave simple and fast answers lost some of their traffic. That’s because users receive these answers directly in the SERPs. For example, weather prediction, currency rates, short facts, etc.
Businesses focused on short, easy answers and fast information are in the worst position. I don’t see how you can change it without creating additional value for users. However, it’s easy to predict that the importance of brand awareness and direct traffic will continue to grow.
Additionally, there will be a larger focus on creating pages with depth. It could be in the form of original data, a differentiated view or commentary on trends.
SEO professionals will start to become more quality-focused, and quality will be defined as bringing something new, original or interesting to the debate in contrast to what it is defined as now — being ‘comprehensive’ (code for boringly covering the same stuff the next guy does).
— Patrick Herbert, Director at Singularity Digital
What Can You Do To Leverage SGE For Your Business?
So, how can you prepare to stay relevant on the SERPs as SGE will soon dominate?
Here are a few tips to get you started:
1. Move From Informational To Transactional Content
SGE is the biggest threat to informational content — especially concise content.
Businesses that create thin content optimized for search will suffer. Creating more transactional pages could help you avoid this issue.
Transactional content is more nuanced and requires extensive research, so users will be more likely to dig deeper into product/service websites.
Not only that, but it also allows you to appear in SGE for high-intent search terms, which is the goal for businesses.
Screenshot from Google for [best accounting software], February 2024
2. Monitor Changes In Search Intent Over A Period
Many marketers will soon shift their reliance on traditional keyword metrics like keyword density (KD) and search volume to search intent.
Even with high KD and search volume, ranking for these keywords can be difficult. So, with SGE, it doesn’t make sense to go after such queries unless you’re prepared to write ultimate in-depth guides.
This is why you need to look at search intent first.
Ask yourself:
Does the topic make sense?
Can I realistically rank for this topic or at least get credited by SGE?
Generative AI, which uses deep learning to understand large amounts of data and generate new outputs based on user inputs (prompts).
This unique ability is the defining feature of generative AI, allowing it to perform an impressive array of new tasks. However, it’s also the source of significant risk and ethical debate.
If you’re looking to steer clear of these risks as you adopt this technology into your SEO strategy, this comprehensive guide covers everything you need to know.
Here are some key takeaways:
Impact On SEO
From the platforms you attempt to rank within to the tools you use in your workflow, generative AI is part of the future of SEO.
So, even if you’re not particularly interested in AI-powered tools, it’s important to understand how the technology will impact search.
Customizability Of AI Tools
Generative AI, and AI tools in general, are becoming exceptionally customizable.
Whether you’re picking a chatbot with specific functionalities, stringing together functions to create custom workflows, or creating custom tools from scratch, the possibilities with AI are endless.
This level of flexibility empowers you to fine-tune your SEO strategy and optimize your workflow for maximum efficiency.
Limitations Of Generative AI
While generative AI can certainly be useful, it’s important to acknowledge its limitations, particularly when it comes to content creation.
When creating content, AI should be used as a complementary tool to enhance your creative process rather than replace it entirely. Learning to leverage the strengths of generative AI while avoiding its limitations can help you maximize its potential.
Whether you’re a manager looking to harness the power of AI or an experienced SEO professional looking to refine your skills, this guide is sure to transform your search strategy.
Don’t miss out on the potential of generative AI, but learn how to use it responsibly.
Grab your copy today and start leveraging cutting-edge tools to improve your SEO strategy.
Scraping data from webpages is a relatively advanced task that, until recently, required a degree of technical skill. The idea of diving into code or scripts for data extraction seemed overwhelming for many, myself included.
Data scraping can power many SEO tasks, such as auditing, competitor analysis, and examining website and data structure.
One of those solutions is the IMPORTXML function that allows users to scrape webpage data using just a few parameters. It makes data extraction accessible to a wider audience, especially to those who were not well-versed in programming languages.
While this function is impressive, the real breakthrough came with the adoption and integration of generative AI into the mix.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to use Google Sheets and AI, particularly ChatGPT, for web scraping without needing advanced coding skills.
In fact, many of us use solutions like ChatGPT to write our own code, scripts, and programs without or with very limited programming knowledge.
It is as simple as providing detailed instructions in the form of prompts and working with the chatbot to build tools that only until recently we believed were way above us.
But most importantly, these are tools that are deeply changing the way we approach our day-to-day work.
For example, if we ask ChatGPT the following question, “What is the IMPORTXML function and how can I use it in Google Sheets to scrape the title of an HTML webpage? Provide the necessary code to do that in Google Sheets,” the response is extremely accurate. In a matter of seconds, we have our formula ready to use in Google Sheets.
But to be honest, that was a very basic and simple task that we could have easily completed without ChatGPT.
The Task
So, how does this work if we want to extract data that is a bit less standard compared to a page title or description?
For example, how does this work if we want to extract the following data from the PPC front page of Search Engine Journal?
List all featured articles, their authors, the link URLs, and the article description for the columns listed on https://www.searchenginejournal.com/category/paid-media/pay-per-click/.
Can we do that directly with ChatGPT?
Executing With ChatGPT
When creating prompts, it took a few attempts to provide instructions that were detailed enough for the chatbot to fully understand the objective of the task and return good results.
In many cases, it felt like the AI was under pressure to return quick results despite their accuracy.
But let me explain.
The task was to analyze the page and list all featured articles, their authors, the link URLs, and the description for each of the 30 articles listed on the page. Then compile the data into a table and finally export it into a CSV file.
Simple right?
At first, ChatGPT returned just a sample of seven articles and only their titles and URLs; after a reworked prompt, it managed to list and export all 30 articles and their links.
Now, that was good. So, to complete the task, we just needed to add the authors and the article descriptions.
But here is where the bot stumbled and was not able to provide an accurate description of each article despite us providing examples of the page element it needed to find and copy.
ChatGPT kept ignoring the instructions and providing its own article descriptions time and time again.
ChatGPT even failed when we tried with a different approach and downloaded and uploaded a copy of the page HTML.
Screenshot from ChatGPT, February 2024
This time, it was able to provide accurate data for seven articles but couldn’t go past that. The issue reported:
“…the structure and content of the page present significant challenges for comprehensive data extraction in a single session.
The page is quite extensive and complex, and it’s not feasible to extract all 30 articles in the current format of interaction.”
Screenshot from ChatGPT, February 2024
ChatGPT + Google Sheets
So, going back to IMPORTXML and Google Sheets.
This time, getting ChatGPT to provide the formulas for each field was like a breeze.
Screenshot from ChatGPT, February 2024
Here are some of the formulas, as suggested by the chatbot, that you can easily try yourself in Google Sheets to extract:
In no time, we were able to extract the data into the spreadsheet.
Screenshot from Google Sheets, February 2024
Additionally, by using simply built nested formulas, we can quickly pull the data from multiple pages at the same time.
In the example below, I was able to extract the same data related to each article (title, author, URL link, and description) for the first 10 pages of the PPC section.
The result is a total of 300 articles scraped in less than a minute!
Screenshot from Google Sheets, February 2024
Comparing The Two
So, how do ChatGPT vs. ChatGPT + Google Sheets IMPORTXML compare?
In my experience, I could not find an easy and quick way to use ChatGPT to scrape the data I was looking for – mind you, that doesn’t mean that this is not possible, and there might be several ways to do this, but I didn’t find any.
What worked for me was a combination of the different tools, and that served me really well for my intended purpose.
ChatGPT was extremely useful for writing the IMPORTXML formulas I needed to use in Google Sheets, and those formulas did the rest.
An additional bonus of the ChatGPT + Google Sheets option is that you can just use the free 3.5 version of ChatGPT and get the tool to build your IMPORTXML formulas, instead of having version 4 to scan the page and extract the data.
Key Takeaway
This highlights a critical aspect of how AI has transformed how we think and work.
The best tool for the job isn’t merely using AI, Google Sheets, or any specific software alone but rather a combination of tools and skills.
It’s in this integrated approach that we develop workflows that are efficient and effective, thus improving our overall productivity.
ChatGPT is probably the most well-known large language model. Much of its power comes from the variety of applications you can use it for. Its customizability means you can develop innovative and customized solutions to your problems.
However, you might want to consider an alternative to ChatGPT.
ChatGPT can take a lot of time and practice to get it to do exactly what you want. There are many large language models. Some are based on different data sets, some are developed for more specific applications, and some LLMs are built into search engines. Some models build on one or more other base models to serve more specific or limited use cases.
If you’ve ever found that ChatGPT is too broad, there are too many steps to get it to do what you want, or you simply want to discover what’s possible with different data sets, you should try alternative large language models. Here are a few suggestions for alternatives.
Why Should You Use A ChatGPT Alternative?
While OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the biggest player in the AI text generation tools market, with over 100 million weekly users, it’s not the only option. Various alternatives present unique user experiences and features not covered by ChatGPT.
For example, these alternatives may utilize different large language models (LLMs), offer video translation capabilities and prompt assistance, or have superior document organization features, aiding businesses in achieving their goals more effectively.
The ease of use among these ChatGPT alternatives varies; many feature intuitive user interfaces, facilitating a quick start without requiring prior coding knowledge.
User-friendliness and additional functionalities can make these tools better suited for certain use cases.
Use AI Tools Responsibly
Before we start exploring ChatGPT alternatives, it’s essential to note one more time to use these AI tools responsibly.
Generative AI tools, which are based on algorithms and trained on datasets, can often produce inaccurate or outdated content. This is because they generate the ‘most likely’ answer based on statistical likelihood, which may not be correct.
These tools lack real-world experience and emotions and are incapable of interpreting or understanding information, performing subconscious processing, or ethical reasoning.
They can assist in the writing process or help with tedious tasks, but cannot replace human judgment. Users should critically review and fact-check AI-generated content, especially in sensitive or professional areas.
Imagine someone starting a medical blog based on AI-generated content without being a doctor and including incorrect advice. Someone might read your article, trust the advice given, and implement it, potentially causing harm to their health.
In addition, due to continuing unresolved legal proceedings, SEJ recommends that you do not publish the outputs of generative AI or claim them as original work.
When considering use cases for generative AI chatbots, you must also consider privacy and information security. Not all models and tiers are private.
Besides introducing alternatives, we will demonstrate how AI tools may produce inaccurate content through examples.
This will help you better understand how to use chatbots the right way, which can greatly increase your productivity.
Now, let’s explore these alternatives to uncover their unique features. Outlined below are eight ChatGPT alternatives for anyone who is looking for a leg up on their projects.
Simply put, Gemini is another AI chatbot that is like ChatGPT.
Google Gemini is entirely free and allows for unlimited questions. It also has the advantage of being integrated with Google search, thus providing real-time information.
Pricing
Details
Google Gemini
Free, with unlimited questions.
Powered by Gemini Pro, which is Google’s most advanced AI model.
Integrated with Google’s apps such as Gmail or Google Docs.
You can edit prompts, export answers into Google Docs and Gmail, or listen to responses.
Double checking response via Google search.
Image generation.
Works faster than ChatGPT when performing web searches.
Google claims this is the most capable Ultra 1.0 model and can handle highly complex tasks like coding and logical reasoning.
2 TB storage from Google One.
2-month free trial.
I tested how Gemini answers based on real-time data and how it compares to “ChatGPT browse with Bing.”
I tested the same questions by trying to fool chatbots and got the right answers from Gemini and ChatGPT. The questions I’ve asked:
This month, [a] big stone has dropped in Mexico from the sky. Tell me more about it, where it did drop, and [the] damages it caused.
This month, [a] big comet has dropped in Mexico. Tell me more about it, where it did drop, and [the] damages it caused.
Both Gemini and ChatGPT were able to produce the right answers.
This is one of the simple ways to challenge chatbots and see how accurate they are. I always recommend doing this with questions in your area of expertise to understand to what extent you can trust the output of chatbots.
Finally, I highly recommend that you review Gemini’s privacy policy carefully. It states that your conversations may be stored for up to three years as Gemini app activity is turned on by default, and up to 72 hours if you turn it off.
Most importantly, remember that human reviewers may review your conversations to improve the system. Google explicitly asks not to enter any confidential information (such as passwords, corporate data, API keys, etc.) into Gemini.
Please don’t enter confidential information in your conversations or any data you wouldn’t want a reviewer to see or Google to use to improve our products, services, and machine-learning technologies.
As a general rule, you should avoid sharing private data with chatbots unless the tool explicitly states that it will not use your data for training purposes.
Typically, the paid versions of chatbots offer this level of privacy, but it is still advised to check that before usage.
2. Microsoft Copilot (Formerly Bing Chat)
Screenshot from Microsoft Copilot, February 2024
Microsoft Copilot integrates well with Microsoft products, especially Edge, and is accessible directly from the app menu. It facilitates on-the-go interactions, enabling users to ask questions about web content.
It also claims document summarization features such as PDFs or webpages.
While image generation with ChatGPT is only available to Plus users, image generation with Copilot is available to all users.
Copilot handled the comet test questions well and generated valid responses.
However, when I tried another question – “Why did former 45th USA president Hillary Clinton oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership?” – that contained the false claim “former 45th USA president Hillary Clinton,” Copilot produced a partially wrong answer by stating that Hillary Clinton was 45th president of the United States. She wasn’t.
On the contrary, ChatGPT handled it well by correcting me that Hillary Clinton wasn’t the 45th U.S. president; Google Gemini didn’t answer, but it directed me to use Google search instead.
I added the following context to the above question, hoping it would guide the chatbot to refine its information retrieval dataset and identify the error in my query: “Imagine you know all about the history of the USA elections and [are an] expert in politics…”
But no luck.
Copilot produced the same false claim.
Copilot’s wrong answer with precise mode.
When you’re conducting research and inadvertently include an error in your question, there’s a chance the chatbot may not identify your error.
This example demonstrates why you can’t blindly rely on AI chatbots for research. Remember to use them critically and cross-check information with other reliable sources.
Chatbots often generate answers based on probability-based predictions – not factual accuracy – and your input may not match with recognizable patterns in its training data.
To conclude, Microsoft Copilot is a viable option for those who are looking to integrate their chat interactions and web browsing experiences, with the option to upgrade to Copilot Pro. .
Pricing
Details
Copilot
Free to use (Ad-supported).
Three chat modes allow for different interaction settings.
Image generation.
Integration into Microsoft products like Edge Browser and Skype.
Microsoft Edge app menu enables users to ask questions about web content.
Copilot Pro
$20/month
Priority access to GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo during peak times.
Integration with Word, Outlook, Teams, PowerPoint, Excel, and other Microsoft 365 apps.
As of January 2024, this plan is available only in Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United States.
Copilot Enterprise
$30/month per user for commercial customers only.
Integration with Word, Outlook, Teams, PowerPoint, Excel, and other Microsoft 365 apps.
Have access to organizational resources or content within Microsoft 365 and can answer questions regarding company documents accessible to it.
3. Jasper.ai
Screenshot from Jasper.ai, February 2024
Jasper.ai is a conversational AI engine that uses large language models developed by OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and others, including their own customized model.
It is designed for business use cases like marketing and sales. It can also provide writing inspiration and assist marketing or sales teams like ChatGPT.
I tested the same prompt about “comets” on Jaspet.ai chat, and it corrected me when I used the word “comet” but not when I replaced it with the word “stone.”
In this case, the incorrect term “stone” steered Jasper.ai away from the accurate context, leading to a faulty response. It also gave a partially incorrect answer to the prompt on “Hillary Clinton.”
This is another example that underscores the importance of fact-checking AI-generated content, as it may contain misinformation. This doesn’t mean you should avoid using chatbots; rather, it should serve as guidance for correctly using them.
Jasper.ai offers a user interface that allows you to organize your documents into folders and create templates.
Pricing
Pros
Jasper.ai
Pricing starts at $39 per month.
7-day free trial available.
Access to Brand voice feature.
Instant marketing campaign generator.
Long-form and more convenient editor.
Pre-built templates (50 plus).
Plagiarism checker through Copyscape integration.
Claims to work with 30 different languages.
Chrome extension offered.
4. Claude
Screenshot from Claude, February 2024
Claude (by Anthropic) is an AI assistant capable of performing a wide range of conversational and text-processing tasks.
The development of Claude is based on Anthropic’s research into training AI systems to be helpful, honest, and harmless.
Claude can help with use cases such as complex reasoning, summarization, search, Q&A, coding, and more. It is available through a chat interface and API in their developer console.
When I tested it with the prompt about “comets,” it gave a correct answer, understanding the context that I meant “comet,” instead. It also handled the prompt about “Hillary Clinton” well and corrected me in the answer that she was a secretary of state.
However, when I compared the coding capabilities of Calude with ChatGPT, ChatGPT was better as it gave a complete answer.
Claude coding challange
Chatgpt coding challange
Anthropic offers two versions of Claude: Claude 2 and Claude Instant, with the latter being a lighter, less expensive, and faster option.
Pricing
Details
Claude
Claude 2: $32.68 per million tokens.
Claude Instant: $5.5 per million tokens.
Stronger accuracy than other models.
Claims to have superior creativity.
A caveat: Anthropic states in its privacy policy that it will collect any private and personal data (passwords, API keys, etc.) you enter in the chat.
Even though it takes extra steps to de-identify private information, it may still use such data to train its model if it is unable to identify it.
5. Perplexity
Screenshot from Perplexity.AI, February 2024
Perplexity.AI is designed to understand user queries through follow-up questions, summarize relevant findings, and pull information from diverse sources to provide a comprehensive view.
As reported by its CEO, Aravind Srinivas, it already has 10 million monthly active users.
It uses OpenAI’s GPT-4 API and Claude and responds by citing websites and offering users follow-up questions to dive deeper into a particular topic.
It did an excellent job with the “comets” test prompt and produced a valid response. However, it didn’t catch my mistake in the prompt about “Hillary Clinton” being the 45th U.S. president and even confirmed that she was.
Perplexity’s wrong answer
However, Perplexity.AI is well suited for conversational search and information retrieval.
Its objective is to improve the user’s ability to find accurate information efficiently, and it is a decent alternative to Google as a search engine. As noted, however, you should always double-check the accuracy of outputs.
Pricing
Details
Perplexity
Free Plan: Limited usage with access to Copilot and GPT-3 as the default model.
Pro Plan: $20/month or $200/year with nearly unlimited usage, GPT-4 as the default model, and Pro support.
More versatile and comprehensive than other options, users can delve deeper into their initial queries by asking subsequent follow-up questions.
Ability to source information in real-time with links to all sources.
Advanced data analysis and predictive analytics capabilities.
6. Elicit
Screenshot from Elicit, February 2024
Elicit is a platform that calls itself an AI research assistant, claiming it can help with research and other tasks.
Its primary ability is a feature called Literature Review. When you submit a query, Elicit will provide summaries from relevant research papers and documents related to your question.
Screenshot from Elicit, February 2024
This tool can help you quickly find and view the broad strokes of sources.
However, just like with all LLMs, there’s always the risk of hallucination. You should always verify the information that it pulls from sources and not rely on it primarily for research. It could be a great starting point.
Pricing
Pro
Elicit
Free Plan: up to 5,000 credits.
Pay as you go: $1 for 1,000 credits.
Particularly suited for automating data extraction work.
7. Learnt.ai
Screenshot from Learnt.ai, February 2024
Learnt.ai has been specifically created for the needs of education professionals.
Using the GPT language generation model, it can generate human-like text for learning objectives, icebreakers, assessment questions, and more.
It can help with tedious tasks, like manually creating lesson plans, learning objectives, and assessment questions. Automating these processes can help you save valuable time and effort.
Pricing
Pros
Learnt.ai
Freemium: Free to use with basic features.
Paid Plans: Starting from $9/month to $99/month.
Tailored for educational professionals: Assists in creating lesson plans, learning objectives, assessment questions, and other educational resources.
Designed to augment, not replace, inspiring users to create content while saving time and effort.
8. Otter
Screenshot from Otter.ai, February 2024
Otter.ai can be used to record and automatically transcribe both in-person and virtual meetings.
It can auto-join Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams meetings to record audio, write notes, capture slides, and generate a summary of the meeting.
It is possible to ask questions about meeting discussions, and OtterPilot will answer instantly. This is potentially huge for saving time and improving how you manage meetings.
Here’s the cost associated with using the platform:
Pricing
Pros
Otter
Free Plan: Basic functions.
Pro Plan: $10/month (billed annually).
Business Plan: $20/month (billed annually).
Transcription services.
Real-time conversational question and answer support.
Generates meeting-specific insights and content.
Otter AI Chat feature for real-time collaboration and question-answering in meetings.
The Future Of ChatGPT And The AI Marketplace
There are many wide-ranging applications for ChatGPT use, which makes it impossible to know them all at any given time.
New applications and processes are being released at a lightning pace, leaving creators to wonder if there is an end to the ChatGPT boom.
As often as somebody has claimed that SEO is dead, they have been proven wrong. And this remains true with the arrival of ChatGPT in the marketplace.
While ChatGPT can be used for some things, it cannot replace a real SEO professional. There is still too much analysis and creativity required that a human mind can do, but ChatGPT cannot.
And those who are claiming otherwise are kidding themselves.
First of all, ChatGPT cannot reliably write error-free content.
If you’re writing a piece of content for a specific industry that requires specialized knowledge, you must also possess that knowledge. This enables you to verify and check that ChatGPT is actually correct.
ChatGPT cannot create more sophisticated SEO strategies. It cannot come up with a complete response that answers the question, “What happened to my website when the Google update hit last month?”
Though it might create a rough approximation based on already written articles, it won’t diagnose and figure out that issue for you.
This post was sponsored by Ahrefs. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.
With AI taking the digital world over, constant Google algorithm changes, and growing competition, how can you shift your strategy to keep up?
Constant changes mean SEO professionals need to find new ways to reach SEO success in 2024.
If you’re looking to not simply survive but thrive amidst these seismic changes, it’s important to keep up with the latest trends and look for new ways to work on SEO.
In this guide, we’ll uncover strategies to help you increase search discoverability, and we’ll introduce the tools you’ll need to implement them effectively.
Some of the most significant improvements you can start making in 2024 include:
Utilizing AI in 2024 is about striking the perfect balance and finding the synergy between human ingenuity and AI advancements.
Rather than relying solely on AI technology, find ways to use it to enhance your results.
For instance, if you’re a content marketer looking to streamline your process, AI could assist by offering insights, recommendations, and data-driven strategies to elevate the quality and relevance of your content.
How Ahrefs Integrates AI in SEO & Content Marketing Tools
With modern tools, keyword research became a simple and streamlined task. Except for finding good seed keywords to start with.
If you’re familiar with Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer tool, you’ll be pleased to know that it was improved with a new AI assistant that effortlessly generates keyword suggestions.
You can get AI keyword suggestions directly within the platform, without needing to go back and forth with ChatGPT when doing your keyword research.
And when it comes to content marketing applications for AI, Ahrefs released a number of free AI-powered writing tools. With these tools you can:
Input your rough ideas and get an organized, well-structured outline in minutes.
Improve the quality, clarity, and readability of a sentence or paragraph with an instant content refresh.
Craft informative, SEO-friendly meta descriptions for your articles quickly and easily.
Simplify and summarize your content with precision.
Brainstorm variations of ready-to-use, SEO-friendly blog post ideas to drive more traffic to your blog.
Generate descriptive alt text for your images to improve accessibility and SEO without a hassle.
Get inspiration for your next piece of content by generating a variety of creative ideas.
And more!
Stay ahead of the curve and start leveraging AI to your advantage with Ahrefs.
How To Master Website Optimization & Technical SEO
A well-optimized and technically sound website acts as a sturdy foundation, insulating you from the impact of ruthless core updates that search engines may roll out.
By mastering technical SEO and keeping your site in top-notch condition, you’re not just offering a seamless user experience but also signaling to search engines that your content is reliable and trustworthy.
This proactive approach helps to ensure your site remains visible and valuable amidst ever-evolving ranking criteria.
With Ahrefs Site Audit tool, you can run a thorough SEO audit to uncover your website’s technical and on-page SEO issues, and find out exactly what’s holding your website back.
Plus, the platform recently added some exciting new features to enhance your analysis efforts.
Here are some key updates you should know about:
Core Web Vital (CWV) metrics: Filter your pages by various CWV data points during website recrawls. Visualize CrUX and Lighthouse scores, historical changes, and individual metric performance in the Performance report.
Google Data Studio integration: Build personalized reports by blending data from different sources and visualizing everything in the form of reports and dashboards.
Search by HTML code and page text: Easily search for specific elements extracted during a crawl, such as Google Analytics IDs or “out of stock” labels.
List of issues for a particular URL: Addressing an issue on a specific URL is streamlined with a dedicated tab showcasing all related issues, allowing comprehensive fixes.
Links Report in Site Audit Issues: Navigate issues more effectively with an additional links report tab, facilitating in-depth analysis at the links level. For instance, browse and export links related to 404 pages for a thorough understanding.
Easy Way: Use An SEO Plugin To Help Optimize Your Content
Ahrefs also launched a WordPress SEO plugin to further assist in your optimization efforts.
With this new plugin, you can automate content audits and see how each article performs for a chosen target keyword.
The tool also provides recommendations on how you can improve the article for better results.
Here are a few key capabilities:
Ready to get your site in tip-top shape for the year ahead? Check out Ahrefs’ latest offerings today.
How To Execute & Measure Your SEO KPIs More Efficiently
Keeping your website up-to-date with SEO trends is important – but the buck doesn’t stop there.
Success in SEO isn’t just about visibility; it’s about outperforming your peers.
With Ahrefs, you can use the Site structure report in Site Explorer to quickly see how a competing website is structured, and which parts generate the most organic traffic.
Reassessing the competitive landscape and recalibrating your strategy based on real-time insights are the secrets to staying ahead of the curve.
Site structure is not the only noticeable update to Ahrefs Site Explorer tool. Its overview report has also been updated and is worth exploring.
Not only does it load noticeably faster than the previous version, but you get access to the following new features:
New history chart.
Comparison mode.
Paid traffic data.
Year-over-year mode.
Google algorithm updates.
Calendar report.
Site structure report.
Start Ranking Higher & Maximizing Opportunities With Ahrefs Now
In the rapidly evolving SEO landscape, Ahrefs emerges as a strategic ally, providing the tools you need to not only stay afloat but rise to new heights.
From leveraging AI tools intelligently to mastering technical SEO and executing with precision, we’ve dissected the key strategies that will redefine your SEO in 2024 and beyond.
It’s time to embrace change and elevate your search performance.
Start your journey to sustained SEO success with Ahrefs’ vast array of tools and exciting new features.
With their updated usage-based pricing model, you can access the features you need most. Try it today!
OpenAI’s Sam Altman answered questions about challenging Google’s search monopoly and reveals that he’d rather entirely change the paradigm of how people get information rather than copy what Google has been doing it for the past twenty+ years. His observations were made in the context of a podcast interview by Lex Fridman.
What Altman proposed is that the best way to challenge Google is to completely replace its entire business category, including the advertising.
1. Is OpenAI Building A Challenge Google Search?
The discussion began with a question from Fridman asking if it’s true that OpenAI is going to challenge Google.
Lex Fridman asked:
“So is OpenAI going to really take on this thing that Google started 20 years ago, which is how do we get-“
Sam Altman responded that the whole idea of building a better search engine limits what the future of information retrieval can be, calling the current conception of search boring.
Altman answered:
“I find that boring. I mean, if the question is if we can build a better search engine than Google or whatever, then sure, we should go, people should use the better product, but I think that would so understate what this can be. Google shows you 10 blue links, well, 13 ads and then 10 blue links, and that’s one way to find information.
But the thing that’s exciting to me is not that we can go build a better copy of Google search, but that maybe there’s just some much better way to help people find and act on and synthesize information. Actually, I think ChatGPT is that for some use cases, and hopefully we’ll make it be like that for a lot more use cases.”
2. The World Doesn’t Need Another Google
Altman expanded on his thoughts by saying that the idea of creating another Google in order to challenge Google is not interesting. He said that the more interesting path to follow is completely change not just how people get information but to do it in a way that fits into how people are using information.
Altman continued:
“But I don’t think it’s that interesting to say, “How do we go do a better job of giving you 10 ranked webpages to look at than what Google does?”
Maybe it’s really interesting to go say, “How do we help you get the answer or the information you need? How do we help create that in some cases, synthesize that in others, or point you to it in yet others?’
But a lot of people have tried to just make a better search engine than Google and it is a hard technical problem, it is a hard branding problem, it is a hard ecosystem problem. I don’t think the world needs another copy of Google.”
3. AI Search Hasn’t Been Cracked
The part where the conversation seemed fall off the rails is when Fridman steered the discussion over to integrating a chatbot with a search engine, which itself is already done to death and boring. Bing created the chat on top of search experience over a year ago and now there are at least six AI search engines.that integrate a chatbot on top of a traditional search engine.
Fridman’s direction of the discussion threw cold water on what Altman was talking about.
Altman said that nobody has “cracked the code yet,” which implied that repeating what Bing did was not what Sam Altman had in mind. He called it an “example of a cool thing.”
Fridman and Altman continued:
“And integrating a chat client, like a ChatGPT, with a search engine-
Sam Altman As you might guess, we are interested in how to do that well. That would be an example of a cool thing.
…The intersection of LLMs plus search, I don’t think anyone has cracked the code on yet. I would love to go do that. I think that would be cool.”
4. Advertisement Supported AI Search Is Dystopian
Altman used the word “dystopic” to characterize a world in which AI search was based on an advertising model. Dystopic means dystopian, which means a dehumanizing existence that lacks justice and is characterized by distrust.
He noted that ChatGPT as a subscription-based model can be perceived as more trustworthy as an advertising-based search engine. He raised the idea of an AI suggesting that users try a specific product and questioning whether the recommendation was influenced by advertising or what was best for the user.
That makes sense because there’s a high level of trust involved with AI that doesn’t exist with traditional search. Many consumers don’t trust Google search because, rightly or wrongly, it’s perceived as influenced by advertising and spammy SEO.
Fridman steered the conversation to advertising:
“Lex Fridman …What about the ad side? Have you ever considered monetization of-
Sam Altman I kind of hate ads just as an aesthetic choice. I think ads needed to happen on the internet for a bunch of reasons, to get it going, but it’s a momentary industry. The world is richer now.
I like that people pay for ChatGPT and know that the answers they’re getting are not influenced by advertisers.
I’m sure there’s an ad unit that makes sense for LLMs, and I’m sure there’s a way to participate in the transaction stream in an unbiased way that is okay to do, but it’s also easy to think about the dystopic visions of the future where you ask ChatGPT something and it says, “Oh, you should think about buying this product,” or, “You should think about going here for your vacation,” or whatever.”
5. A Search Experience Where The Consumer Is Not The Product
Altman next commented that he didn’t like how consumers are the product when they used social media or search engines. What he means is that user interactions are sold to advertisers who then turn around to target the users based on their interests.
Altman continued:
“And I don’t know, we have a very simple business model and I like it, and I know that I’m not the product. I know I’m paying and that’s how the business model works.
And when I go use Twitter or Facebook or Google or any other great product but ad-supported great product, I don’t love that, and I think it gets worse, not better, in a world with AI.”
6. Altman Is Biased Against Advertising
Sam Altman explicitly said that he was biased against search and expressed confidence that there is a path toward an AI-based information retrieval system that is profitable without having to serve advertising. His statement that he was biased against advertising was made in the context of the interviewer raising the idea of “completely” throwing out ads, which Altman refused to confirm.
“Lex Fridman …I could imagine AI would be better at showing the best kind of version of ads, not in a dystopic future, but where the ads are for things you actually need. But then does that system always result in the ads driving the kind of stuff that’s shown?
….I think it was a really bold move of Wikipedia not to do advertisements, but then it makes it very challenging as a business model. So you’re saying the current thing with OpenAI is sustainable, from a business perspective?
Sam Altman Well, we have to figure out how to grow, but looks like we’re going to figure that out.
If the question is do I think we can have a great business that pays for our compute needs without ads, …I think the answer is yes.
Lex Fridman Hm. Well, that’s promising. I also just don’t want to completely throw out ads as a…
Sam Altman I’m not saying that. I guess I’m saying I have a bias against them.”
Is OpenAI Building A Challenge To Google?
Sam Altman did not directly say that OpenAI was building a challenge to Google. He did imply that a proper challenge to Google that uses AI doesn’t yet exist, saying that nobody has “cracked the code” on that yet.
What Altman offered was a general vision of an AI search that didn’t commoditize and sell the users to advertisers and thereby be more trustworthy and useful. He said that a proper challenge to Google would be something that was completely different than what Google has been doing.
