AI is the new buzzword in most white-collar industries, and if you’re involved in any sort of digital marketing, you know that our industry is no exception. Many of us are wondering about the effects and disruption that tools like ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, and Copilot will have on the paid search advertising market – particularly Google’s long-held dominance in the space.
If AI can answer your question without the need to sort through “10 blue links”, how is that simplified experience not a threat to Google’s ad revenue that’s been driven by answering people’s questions for over a quarter of a century?
The first thing to do is to acknowledge the truth of the underlying assumption: decreasing user friction, frustration, and time between question and answer will indeed drive people towards one tool and away from others. Google knows this, which is why they’ve spent the past 25 years creating the best possible experience for getting users from question to answer, in the most enjoyable, accurate way possible. AI will only continue to help them achieve this moving forward – over and above the ability of their competitors.
Embedded experiences: why it matters that we default to Google
Say you have a question you want answered and you’ve got two options: you can either search Google or choose an AI tool like ChatGPT. In almost all cases and across all devices, it’s easier to get from ground zero to typing your question into Google than it is to navigate to and query ChatGPT.
Not only does Google have native search integration on Android (since they own it), but additional strategic default placement deals (notably, an $18–20 billion annual agreement with Apple), ensure that Google remains the go-to search engine for billions of users on mobile. And since Google is also the default engine on desktop for most browsers (Safari and Chrome), the experience of “Googling it” is almost seamless for most people.
Sure, it doesn’t take too long to get to ChatGPT.com or visit their mobile app, but the extra steps of typing in the URL or downloading the app are meaningful barriers in the experience that most people simply don’t want to deal with.
So, Google is still quicker from question to input.
Getting answers fast: comparing load times, options, and accuracy
Now you’ve asked your question and hit ‘Enter’, what happens next? On ChatGPT, you immediately see the words begin to flow across the screen as your answer is generated, but a notable hiccup here is that it takes time for the large language model (LLM) to actually formulate a complete response. If your question doesn’t need a long answer, ChatGPT loses out here. Moreover, even if the answer is quick, it might not even be right. LLMs are notoriously bad about ‘hallucinating’ or making up answers to questions that it doesn’t know. It will usually give you a confident response each time, whether it’s right or wrong.
So, what happened on Google when you hit ‘Enter’? For one, you very quickly see all sorts of links, images, cards, and widgets fill the screen. And most of what you’re seeing isn’t AI, so there’s no risk of hallucination there, just primary sources willing to give you an answer. And if your question is difficult or sophisticated enough that Google thinks you need an answer from an LLM, it will give you one! Not only that, but Google’s AI Overviews natively cite sources within the response, so you can fact check with just a click.
The biggest pain point here may be that you have too many options to choose from, which can lead to decision paralysis and user fatigue. This may be one of Google’s greatest weaknesses when you pit it against AI search tools and their direct, conversational answers.
The technical edge: understanding which tool is more advanced
Ultimately, what raises the most concern about Google’s search dominance is the idea that Google is still playing catch-up to its chatbot-based challengers. But what you might not know is that Google researchers pioneered the technology that made ChatGPT possible; they invented the ‘transformer’ (the ‘T’ in ChatGPT) in 2017! They could have launched a chatbot years earlier, but had concerns about safety that kept them from pushing forward.
This expertise, combined with their superior financial, infrastructural, and in some cases computational resources, will likely allow Google to beat out their AI competitors for years to come.
Risk and reward: what this means for digital marketers
Since the search giant continues to dominate while AI alternatives like ChatGPT struggle for 1% of search market share, we know that Google advertising is not going anywhere anytime soon. Brands should feel confident that search engine marketing will continue to be a reliable source of qualified traffic and revenue for their businesses. As such, marketing teams should not consider pulling traditional SEM budgets as a result of AI advancements.
Instead, marketers should look for ways to make AI work for them. This is especially true when it comes to developing SEO content. AI-friendly formats should be a priority as they pose an opportunity for an additional source of unpaid traffic to your site. Structure your data and content with AI platforms in mind. Helpful content, FAQs, and conversational tone are great ways to do this.
Do you feel left in the dark when it comes to AI and the future of search engine marketing? Our experts are here to help. Book a meeting with our team.
