What is the future of search engines and search marketing?

A few thoughts around AI, standardisation, laziness and the opportunities for bad actors

We know search engines have revolutionised the way we seek information online. Over years they have become an integral part of our daily lives. It’s easy to find answers to our questions, connect with businesses, and stay informed about the latest news and trends. With the continued growth of the internet, search engines and search marketing will morph but continue to play an even more critical role. But how do we manage that change in response to AI ?

The rise of AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the search engine industry as these engines are becoming more intelligent and personalised. AI-powered algorithms improve search results and as AI technology evolves, search engines will be able to deliver even more accurate and relevant results.

February 2023 might be considered in future as the tipping point for contemporary search behaviour?

This wasn’t a brand-new algorithm change but something more transformational. Almost immediately we changed the way we search. Google and Microsoft offered us Bard and ChatGPT; we lapped them up! What we found is that when AI is combined with search you get something that is fascinating, a tad scary but extremely powerful and game changing. Everyone, plus or minus, that tried it was blown away. Microsoft’s Bing and their Edge products suddenly looked very attractive.

There was a scramble to be part of this new search

Chat GPT smashed through app user records and snaffled up over 100m users in just eight weeks….I mean! Imagine if you owned that business. Not only is total dominance achieved almost overnight AI will cut across just about everything we know about SEO. What is the mantra we live by? Yes, ‘learn, unlearn, relearn.’ This is it in glorious practice.

Anyone who has been in this game for as long as I have will know that relearning is how successful marketers stay relevant. It’s not a chore either as conversational chat is the bedrock of most of my writing so it suits me down to the ground!

So what’s different about search today?

?Microsoft tells us that

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?“The chat experience empowers you to refine your search until you get the complete answer you are looking for by asking for more details, clarity and ideas – with links available so you can immediately act on your decisions.”

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Our brains often experience information overload. We’ve all experienced it where authors are forgotten, stats are guessed and pointless conversations go like, ‘Yeah, I read this great article about SEO about how it’s changing and stuff. I’ll send you the link because I can’t remember a single thing about it!’ It's so easy to find out about subjects we are never truly invested. It's very different from going to a library, looking for material, checking an index and then reading the sources. There's a buy in; I am taking time to do this, therefore it matters. But, hey, who has time for that these days and why do we need to anyhow?

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So, if a browser like Edge can summarise long content and adapt it then win/win for us, right?

Certainly, that’s true in the short term but what that might do to our reading capabilities and concentration in the long term is probably up for debate. You can even compare and contrast two articles or reports using this AI capability and have the result tabulated. You do have to ask the question, is that enough? Information retrieval is one skill but checking the results, the bias, the publisher etc is quite another? Who will take the time to do further research? I would say very few people. Think about the opportunities for bad actors here #justsaying.

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Will it be positive?

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The answer is probably yes but not necessarily for everyone for example Google only started to make money through its ads. What will Google ads become? E-commerce and SaaS is based entirely on organic and paid search. So, what will happen to this? If search does switch to a more conversational question answer format that takes place externally in a chat interface, consider the impact. If you can grab all your answers here, then why visit a company page or even read the huge number of articles published every day?

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Why would you bother when AI can do the work for you?

This throws a spanner in legacy content strategy application and something else needs to take its place. Are we going to see paid content dropped into the information that's retrieved? For marketers this might be an extraordinary opportunity but how ethical would that be? Anybody pondering their SEM will know that tomorrow looks very different from yesterday.

?AI will dominate, instead of companies

We are now facing the fact that we can all find information much faster. In many ways this is extremely positive, and it will affect companies in the same way as the early algorithm changes from Google. AI will dominate, instead of companies, who will simply become a tiny footnote. Even Google will need to reappraise its PPC market. We won't focus on a few keywords while hoping for the best. I think back to Boolean search in the early days of Alta Vista et al and it makes me smile. ?We can now be so specific in search and that will take skill but in general I'm wondering just how lazy it will make us. If we're lazy we are easily manipulated. If we don't critique, don't demand, then the offerings become mundane, standardised, lacking imagination. Once you get a solution will you look for another? It's unlikely I would have said.

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We already live in a post truth world

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But, if we are not careful it will just be easy to accept the truth we are served up by AI. This truth is formatted. It's constantly being trained by the searches it makes and the answers it serves up. If we're not careful we will end up on a loop accepting a truth that is too difficult to interrogate. How would one start to find out the who, what, why behind this information?

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This passivity is having a profound impact on critical thinking. Where are the contemporary Mavericks in education for example? I don't see many of these. Anyhow, who, apart from plucky PhD students really undertakes meaningful, time-consuming research? How many people are now complaining about how they struggle to read a book or anything lengthy these days? What would George Orwell have made of this I wonder?

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I digress, however

My research on this disinformation, misinformation and fake news inevitably makes me slightly wary. But as I said to my students, it's important to understand what's happening so I shall watch carefully to see how businesses leverage the opportunity. In my opinion those companies that can create something unique to showcase personalised solutions, expertise and experience will continue to build a brand. Those companies that think very carefully about how they can be positioned as thought leaders will have more chance of success. Right now, AI is not providing this but watch this space. Therefore, it's time for some content strategy housekeeping. Ask yourself whether your content goes into enough detail and whether you are truly providing answers for target audience queries. If you can demonstrate expertise clearly and engagingly while offering new and exciting solutions, then you may well succeed. I just know many questions will be asked around content strategy and search engine optimisation. The clock has already started ticking for the end of legacy SEO practices.

The author lectures in marketing, ethics and has interests in immersive business, leadership and teamwork