GPT and Bard will make your search experience more enjoyable //

Traditional search will be affected by large-language models such as those created by ChatGPT or Google. It’s clear that the changes are coming, and there is no doubt about it.

Some commentators see trouble. Chris Penn from TrustInsight told us that if unbranded search makes up the majority of your search traffic (especially your converting traffic), you should be concerned. This is where large language models can intercept your traffic and give you very little or nothing.

Others are more optimistic. Brent Ramos is Adswerve’s product director for search. We spoke to him. “We are at the edge of this new frontier in search that will eventually be better. I am not pessimistic, but I look forward to it.

An established Google partner

Adswerve, a Google Partner since 1998, provides services related to Google products for agencies, analysts and marketers.

Ramos stated that there is a large number of agencies in the portfolio and a lot of direct marketers. This includes Analytics, Cloud, or media sizes. “My focus was primarily on search, but I have touched the GCP side.” Adswerve also has an Adobe Analytics team.

Change the search paradigm

Ramos has repeatedly stressed that conversational search is still in its early stages and that we don’t know what the future holds. However, he remains optimistic about a new, immersive, and interactive search experience.

It’s going change the way we search. “When you add Bard, let’s just say Google’s generative, and it pushes down the organic ranks and you have the chat AI beforehand, people will converge and convert in that experience. But it’s still too early to predict what it’ll look like.

As expected, most users of Google will first look at the answer to their question generated by Bard. They won’t scroll down to see links or footnotes that tell where Bard got its information.

Dig deep: ChatGPT poses a threat to marketers?

Payed search: What are the implications?

“I anticipate that there will be new paradigms of what that means for paid results. So instead of having a bunch of links to click through in an Index format, we’ll start seeing new formats. The definition of conversions is going to change and the experience in the paid ecosystem will also change. But it won’t disappear.

It is still unclear what the future experience will look like. Ramos believes that we are on an unreversible journey.

He said, “It’s going to not go away.” “Technology is not going to disappear.” We know that technology will become a new paradigm, and it will move search into this new space. Long-term, we can expect new conversion methods, new formatting, and SERP will get busier. Website conversions may decline.”

Some are concerned that if users can access all the information they need directly through the AI, then the index of links (including paid links) will be irrelevant. Ramos insists this isn’t a new phenomenon. We’ve seen it in social media, right? People convert more on social channels than they do landing on the page, especially when it comes to ecommerce.

Conversation that is alive and breathing

However, this does not mean that people will be able to convert to AI content. Ramos isn’t pretending to know what that will look. “Maybe it’s no longer pay-per-click; it’s pay-per-interaction,” he said. We’ll get rich, semantic conversations, not just a repository of links that we can sift through like humans. “The index or repository that we are used to will become a living, breathing conversation.”

Ramos believes that no matter what it looks like it will be better. It will eventually become better all around. It’s almost like when Google and the Internet first came out. The big industry of the yellow page was still there, and publishers were asking, “What are we going do?” And it turned out to be a great thing.

Interconnectivity is vital

Ramos pointed out that traditional search does not just produce links lists. “SERP is just one thing. Search also powers things such as local listings, maps and ecommerce buy-buttons, all of which are interconnected and are vitally embedded in the ecosystem.”

Knowledge panels, videos, dictoionary terms and other search suggestions.

He admits that he doesn’t know the exact direction it is heading, but it’s all speculation, as this is still very new.

Are there bumps in the road?

We don’t know yet how we will get to this rich, interconnected conversation. But we already see teething problems, from disturbing behavior by the AI to error.

Ramos acknowledged that it would be a difficult climb. The silver lining is that it’s possible. It’s just a matter how fast we can build against it. That takes a lot human capital and power.

What is he telling clients at this stage of the journey? “The goal is to accept and understand AI holistically, without biases and without prejudices.

Ramos views the competition between Google’s Bard-based generative AI and Bing’s ChatGPT based on generative AI as a positive. “We want to see the marketplace thriving with innovation. So on both sides of my house, I believe it’s a positive thing. They should push each other.”

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