Digital round-up for February 2024

And just like that 2024 is off to a blistering start! While digital professionals are used to things changing at a rapid pace, 2024 seems to set a new bar for exponential change. If you haven't been able to keep up with the whirlwind, we thought we’d summarise some of the biggest movements in digital for the year thus far (and we’re only 2 months through ??).?

SGE - Google’s Search Generative Experience

The world of SEO is about to be turned upside down. SGE or Google’s Search Generative Experience is set to rattle the world of organic SEO. How it will work and what impact it will have no one can say with certainty at this stage but what we can guestimate is that Google’s Gemini will play a role in generative responses to the search results experience. All we can say is fasten your seat belts, because businesses reliant on organic rankings for revenue are in for an interesting ride.

Adobe halts further investment in XD after failed Figma acquisition?

Last year Adobe set its sights on acquiring one of their biggest competitors Figma for $20 billion. It looked like a done deal to create the design tool megazord, but the deal fell through due to competition regulatory problems in the UK and EU, resulting in Adobe paying Figma $1 billion deal reversal fee. Ouch!?

Furthermore, in a drastic turn of events, Adobe then announced that they would no longer invest in XD going forward, essentially giving away their market share as users will almost certainly move to the competition who keep evolving their design tools.??

Dismal support for advertisers from Google ads (and it's set to only get worse)

Google ads, Alphabet's biggest revenue driver, is making it seriously difficult for advertisers to get any form of actual human customer support. The search engine giant has been betting big on AI and as they ramp up that focus they have been cutting costs in other areas to fund their AI arms race, with Google ads support teams seeing large retrenchments. Additional concerns around aggressive sales calls with Google reps pushing automation on customers just add to the concerns from advertisers that are deeming the situation as unacceptable and deeply concerning.?

To make matters worse it appears that Google is looking to further cut headcount in this area which doesn't bode well to assure advertisers that the support boat is heading on a correction course.

In response to a recent search engine land article covering the topic, Google responded to the concerns with:

• “This is an area where we are experimenting with AI as an additional component to enhance the customer experience.”
• “We have also made significant improvements to our Ads Help Center content, which helps customers self-resolve issues more quickly and reliably.”

While Google is still a significant part of every digital acquisition strategy, it appears that businesses will be more reliant on suppliers and internal staff members as Google leaves the help line unattended.?

Sigh…

Bard is now Gemini?

Will we ever forget the embarrassing demo of Google’s ChatGPT competitor Bard where it gave incorrect answers live on stage during the unveiling? Well, Google has recently renamed Bard as Gemini. The natural language processing chatbot has been the laggard in the Generative AI sector and many professionals feel this is an attempt to reposition the product in the AI arms race and erase the poor start from user’s minds. Will it work? Only time will tell.

Google institutes new rules for bulk senders, promises a less spammy inbox for users?

In a blow for direct marketers and a win for everyone else, Google is clamping down on bulk emails senders. Gmail will now have stricter regulations around verification, unsubscribe requirements and bulk senders will be required to stay under a spam threshold to keep their direct marketing efforts afloat. For businesses with legitimate databases this shouldn't be too difficult a hurdle, but for less than “honest” marketers this will likely have a big impact on their email marketing efforts.?

AI continues to change the development landscape

While not a new trend, AI has become a significant part of the development process and is set to further entrench its role in the profession. Most people are focused on generative AI for copywriting, design and research, but AI is having a massive impact on how developers work on a daily basis. Automation of repetitive tasks, code and content generation, debugging, code reviews and testing are all being changed by AI tools which are resulting in faster development outputs and higher code quality.??

OpenIA launches Sora

It feels like OpenAI is blowing our minds on a monthly basis with a new generative AI tool that is set to change the world. Well February has been no different with the launch of Sora. Sora is a text to video tool that creates mind blowing videos from user prompts. It doesn't take much to realize that this generative AI tool is going to have a massive impact in a variety of use cases and industries.?

We’ll there you have it. If you think we’ve left something off the list that you feel belongs here, feel free to leave a note in the comments.

Hello Infantry is a Full-Service Digital Agency Seamlessly Integrating Design, Development, Marketing and Data. www.helloinfantry.com