Yes, the title I selected suggests that AI advancements will deteriorate the user experience on Google search. And one might even make the case for that. It is quite questionable whether AI overviews and zero click content unlawfully extracted from content providers with the help of AI makes the web a better place. But this is not what I am going to write about here.
See, things are more complicated when you zoom out a bit from your daily SEO grind. The truth of the matter is that Google has already lost the battle for AI search and they know it.
Google enjoyed a monopoly on search for more than 20 years because no one could aggregate information like they could. However Large Language Models a.k.a. LLMs changed that unique advantage. Yes, Google probably is still ahead aggregating information on the margins (the long tail), however this does not matter for the bulk of search traffic. Wikipedia only adds 5% net new content a year and the bulk of searches answers they same questions over and over again.
In other words LLMs won’t be 100% as good as Google when it comes to surfacing ANY information, however they will hit the 90-95% mark easily. And here comes their big advantage: They will be everywhere!
If all of your devices, apps & software you use on a daily basis will have some sort of built-in search experience (image email programs with a built-in LLM searching for salutations etc.), then search decentralizes away from a single access point to infinite access points. Ergo, Google will loose a shit ton of traffic. They can not prevent it, because they are not fighting a single company, but they are fighting a technology. So they will face a death by a thousand cuts.
How does this affect consumers and businesses? In a pretty bad way to be honest. At least for the next 36 months. Why? Because Google is not dumb. They also know this. But they also know consumer habits change slowly, meaning they have 3-5 years to build out another product which will compensate their search losses (and it seems like their self-driving division is in great shape to do just that). But in the meantime they will squeeze every single penny they can out of their dying monopoly.
In other words you can expect the worst search experience ever created because there will be ads everywhere, content stolen from creators and displayed as Google’s own content and organic results will be hard to find. But as LLMs find access to more and more applications, Google won’t matter as much anymore. And that is great, because Google might be doomed to fail, but search is bigger than Google. People will always search for information, products and services.
For business owners this means efficient capital allocation is absolutely crucial when it comes to SEO. Cut out all of the fluff which does not help you and focus on your bottom-of-the-funnel content to see your conversions rise. Traffic might be harder to get in the future and even outside of your control, but conversions aren’t. Contact us if you need help to future-proof your business for the coming Google Armageddon.
