Would ChatGPT from OpenAI Help or Harm Bing Search?

Would ChatGPT from OpenAI Help or Harm Bing Search?

by Mark Smith Search

It looks like Microsoft is going all-in with ChatGPT, the generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool that is taking the business and technology world by storm. What are the implications?

News about Microsoft

ChatGPT is a chatbot powered by AI. It can provide answers to complex questions with lightning speed conciseness, and creativity – and in a very conversational way. ChatGPT is the product of OpenAI, the company that produced Dall-E, which uses AI to create images. ChatGPT is one of many chatbots designed to respond to queries from people by providing richer, more detailed, and more human-sounding answers than their predecessors.

ChatGPT caused a huge stir after OpenAI released a beta version to the public on November 30, 2022, so that people would use it and give feedback to improve the product. It proved to be so slick and so intelligent that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said ChatGPT achieved one million users in less than a week after its public launch.

As we have blogged, ChatGPT can answer queries so eloquently and completely that some industry watchers have speculated that it might disrupt online search – specifically the way search answers queries largely by linking to other sources of content rather than sharing answers directly to the query.

Google reportedly has issued a “code red” to improve its own AI capabilities as a result. But Microsoft has been celebrating. That’s because the company has been an investor (to the tune of $3 billion) in OpenAI since 2019. OpenAI’s success is Microsoft’s success.

The $3 billion has paid for the huge amounts of computing power that OpenAI needed to build the chatbot. The investment has also meant that Microsoft can rapidly build and deploy new products based on the technology. And, it sounds like Microsoft is ready to do just that. Microsoft is reportedly investing $10 billion in OpenAI to give the company even more computing power. In return, Microsoft is:

  • Exploring the use of ChatGPT in its Office software (including Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook) to improve efficiency and productivity.

This is pretty heady stuff!

Implications

Let’s take a closer look at why Microsoft might incorporate ChatGPT into Bing. Reasons include:

  • Making search easier. As I noted above, generative AI could potentially change the way search engines present answers in search. Requiring searchers to find answers to their questions by clicking on links is a more labor-intensive process than responding to search queries with a single answer that synthesizes information. And on top of that, a smart chatbot can answer more complex questions. Wouldn’t you love it if you could ask a search engine, “Please tell me the fastest way to drive to Chicago, and by the way what are the highest rated Airbnbs for under $200 a night and close to a great steakhouse that serves Kobe beef?” – and have a complete answer delivered to you in a few seconds? That’s what smart chatbots promise to do.
  • Competing with Google. Google is easily the most dominant search engine in the world, commanding 80 percent market share. The company has a generative AI app of its own. But Google isn’t going to release that for the public to toy with largely because Google doesn’t roll that way. LaMDA, the name of Google’s own chatbot,  is in R&D mode, and, as such, it makes mistakes. If Google were release a mistake-prone bot to the public, Google could undermine its own credibility. OpenAI does not have this problem. The company’s model is to test and learn publicly. OpenAI is willing to generate street cred by getting to market faster than Google. And Microsoft reaps the benefits as both an investor and early adopter, which is where Bing comes into play. As The Verge reported, “Both Google and Bing already surface relevant information from links at the top of many search queries, but Google’s knowledge panels are particularly widespread when it comes to searching for information about people, places, organizations, and things.  Microsoft’s use of ChatGPT-like functionality could help Bing rival Google’s Knowledge Graph, a knowledge base that Google uses to serve up instant answers that are regularly updated from crawling the web and user feedback. If Microsoft is ambitious, though, it could even go much further, offering many new types of AI-based functionality.”

But there are also potential downsides, such as:

  • A threat to Microsoft advertising. I recently discussed how ChatGPT could threaten Google’s search advertising business. Google needs people to click on ads that appear next to search results in order to make money – and those ads include sponsored results. What happens when someone’s search query is answered completely and perfectly without anyone needing to click on any links? This question also applies to Bing’s ad business. Bing generated almost as much advertising revenue as Twitter and Snap combined in 2021. It remains to be seen how Bing would incorporate ChatGPT while protecting its own moat.
Bing Advertising

What Businesses Should Do

  • Experiment with ChatGPT (or the chatbot of your choice). Understand how they work. Get comfortable with the conversational way that ChatGPT answers questions. If you’ve invested in voice search, you are probably doing this already. How might this conversational format affect your own approach to online advertising? A number of practitioners are publishing in-depth posts about using ChatGPT as a tool for search engine optimization. (Here’s an example.) Before you do, know the risks, including the ones we have discussed in this post.
  • Don’t change how you do business. ChatGPT is fraught with many other issues such as potential copyright infringement. It’s not ready for prime time by any stretch.
  • If you are a Microsoft advertising partner, watch events closely. (We are doing that for our clients.) If Microsoft does indeed roll out a version of Bing that includes ChatGPT, ask your account representative how they are managing against the downsides of this tool.

Contact True Interactive

To succeed with online advertising, contact True Interactive. Read about some of our client work here.

Is OpenAI’s ChatGPT a Threat to Google?

Is OpenAI’s ChatGPT a Threat to Google?

by Mark Smith Google

Could a chatbot replace Google Search?

That’s what a lot of technology watchers are asking since the public release of ChatGPT, a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence.

ChatGPT is the product of OpenAI, the company that produced Dall-E, which uses AI to create images. ChatGPT is one of many chatbots designed to respond to queries from people by providing richer, more detailed, and more human-sounding answers than their predecessors.

ChatGPT caused a huge stir after OpenAI released a beta version to the public on November 30 so that people would use it and give feedback that will improve the chatbot. It proved to be so slick and so intelligent that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said ChatGPT achieved one million users in less than a week after its public launch.

It didn’t take long for journalists and pundits to test how well the chatbot would respond to the kind of challenging questions that people ask via Google Search. After all, for the most part, Google answers questions by providing links to other sources of information. This requires the user to do more work by clicking through the links for more detail. But ChatCPGT responds with a single answer that synthesizes information. Writer Parmy Olson wrote on Bloomberg:

I went through my own Google search history over the past month and put 18 of my Google queries into ChatGPT, cataloguing the answers. I then went back and ran the queries through Google once more, to refresh my memory. The end result was, in my judgment, that ChapGPT’s answer was more useful than Google’s in 13 out of the 18 examples.

“Useful” is of course subjective. What do I mean by the term? In this case, answers that were clear and comprehensive. A query about whether condensed milk or evaporated milk was better for pumpkin pie during Thanksgiving sparked a detailed (if slightly verbose) answer from ChatGPT that explained how condensed milk would lead to a sweeter pie. (Naturally, that was superior.) Google mainly provided a list of links to recipes I’d have to click around, with no clear answer.

That underscores ChatGPT’s prime threat to Google down the line. It gives a single, immediate response that requires no further scanning of other websites. In Silicon Valley speak, that is a “frictionless” experience, something of a holy grail when online consumers overwhelmingly favor services that are quick and easy to use.

But, wait a minute.

Doesn’t Google also have a chatbot? Yes, it does.

The Google LaMDA chatbot does what ChatGPT does. But Google isn’t going to release that for the public to toy with largely because Google doesn’t roll that way. LaMDA is in R&D mode, and, as such, it makes mistakes. If Google were release a mistake-prone bot to the public, Google could undermine its own credibility.

OpenAI does not have this problem. The company’s model is to test and learn publicly. OpenAI is willing to generate street cred by getting to market faster than Google.

And to be clear: ChatGPT makes mistakes and fabricates answers. It’s also under fire for providing biased information. But OpenAI released the tool publicly to unearth these problems in order to fix them, and no doubt ChatGPT will get better.

But Google has another problem: how does a chat interface get monetized? As writer Alex Kantrowitz wrote,

Even if chatbots were to fix their accuracy issues, Google would still have a business-model problem to contend with. The company makes money when people click ads next to search results, and it’s awkward to fit ads into conversational replies. Imagine receiving a response and then immediately getting pitched to go somewhere else—it feels slimy and unhelpful. Google thus has little incentive to move us beyond traditional search, at least not in a paradigm-shifting way, until it figures out how to make the money aspect work. In the meantime, it’ll stick with the less impressive Google Assistant.

The fact that Google is even developing a chatbot demonstrates that the company is looking beyond the current search interface. ChatGPT won’t “beat” Google. But it will likely accelerate Google’s embrace of chat as a search interface.

But how should businesses respond to all this?

  • First off, experiment with ChatGPT (or the chatbot of your choice). Understand how they work. Get comfortable with the conversational way that ChatGPT answers questions. If you’ve invested in voice search, you are probably doing this already. How might this conversational format affect your own approach to online advertising?
  • But don’t change how you do business. ChatGPT is fraught with many other issues such as potential copyright infringement. It’s not ready for prime time by any stretch.

The headline is this: if you’re all in with Google as an advertising platform, ChatGPT shouldn’t change your budget for 2023. But do spend time with it while you can do so for free. The time will likely come soon when OpenAI will turn ChatGPT into a commercial tool,

Contact True Interactive

To succeed with online advertising, contact True Interactive. Read about some of our client work here.

Get Ready for AI Everywhere

Get Ready for AI Everywhere

by Mark Smith Artificial Intelligence

In 2019, artificial intelligence (AI) will make digital advertising more targeted, thanks in part to the efforts of Google. But marketers will need to invest more time and effort to make AI pay off.

It’s clear that AI is essential to Google’s growth. In February 2018, CEO Sundar Pichai said AI is more profound than electricity or fire. A few months later, he published a statement of AI principles in which he outlined seven ways Google will use AI (and ways that Google will not). The post focused on the importance of using AI for social good. Pichai did not mention using AI for advertising, but Google is certainly applying AI to make advertising smarter.

For instance, in 2018, Google launched a number of products that use machine learning (a form of AI) to improve online advertising performance. I recently blogged about one such product, responsive search ads. As I noted, responsive search ads make it possible for advertisers to enter multiple headlines (up to 15) and descriptions (up to four) when creating a search ad. Then Google Ads applies machine learning to automatically test different combinations and learn which combinations perform best. In addition, per Google, advertisers can add a third headline and second description to your text ads, and your descriptions can have up to 90 characters.

2018 was just a warm-up for what’s to come in 2019. Businesses demand more accountability and ROI from their online ad spend, and AI does just that. I expect Google will focus more on using AI to make YouTube more effective. Google has already injected AI into YouTube with features such as maximize lift, which is a smart bidding tool that automatically adjusts bids at auction time to maximize the impact a company’s video ads have on brand perception. Maximize lift is supposed to help businesses reach people who are most likely to consider their brand after seeing a video ad.

One concern we often hear from advertisers is that YouTube is not as useful for direct-response campaigns as it is for brand building. In 2019, we’ll see the emergence of tools that do a better job targeting video ad content to people who are in shopping mode and ready to buy as Google makes YouTube more of a lower-funnel platform.

AI will make online advertising better. But AI will also require marketers to invest more time and energy to make it pay off, as I discussed in my post about responsive search ads. It’s important that businesses understand its uses and requirements. For more insight, contact True Interactive. We help businesses maximize the value of their online advertising and understand where the industry is headed.

Image source: https://pixabay.com/en/artificial-intelligence-robot-ai-ki-2167835/

Artificial Intelligence Shapes Google’s Future

Artificial Intelligence Shapes Google’s Future

by Tim Colucci Marketing

For many marketers, Google means advertising. But Google also wants us to associate its name with artificial intelligence. Recent events illustrate how the company has one foot planted in the present and future. Can Google have its cake and eat it, too?

The Present: Advertising

The latest quarterly earnings announcement of Google’s parent, Alphabet, shows that Google remains a formidable force in the world of online advertising. Alphabet’s first-quarter revenues, $31.1 billion, outperformed analysts’ expectations. Why? Because Google is an advertising cash cow. As much as Alphabet likes to tout its forays into emerging technology, its money comes from Google’s ability to secure revenue via time-honored advertising tools such as AdWords.

Approximately $26.6 billion, or 86 percent of Alphabet’s quarterly revenue, came from Google advertising. Think about that: $26.6 billion. That’s enough to land a company in the Fortune500. Google is protecting its position by refining current tools such as AdWords while rolling out new tools to make online advertising more personal and mobile-centric. Although much has been said about Google’s struggle to make YouTube a safer advertising platform for brands, probably Google’s bigger threat is Amazon, which continues to ascend as a major search platform – and offers advertising tools of its own. As reported, Amazon is now a multi-billion dollar advertising giant. Google needs to adapt or fall behind.

The Future: Artificial Intelligence

The 2018 Google I/O event, occurring May 8-9, illustrates Google’s intent to change itself and the world around it. At this year’s I/O, Google has been pushing artificial intelligence through its products. For example, Google announced the creation of Duplex, an “AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone” in the words of a Google blog post. As Google noted:

The technology is directed towards completing specific tasks, such as scheduling certain types of appointments. For such tasks, the system makes the conversational experience as natural as possible, allowing people to speak normally, like they would to another person, without having to adapt to a machine.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai demonstrated how accurate Duplex already is when he showed how Duplex can make Google’s voice assistant (Google Assistant) smart enough to place a call to a hair salon and book an appointment with a real person, sounding so natural that a human being is not aware they are talking with a voice assistant.

Google also unleashed a number of AI-based product improvements ranging from a smarter, more personal Google Maps to a customized Google News. So why the push into AI? Because Google knows that the company needs to become more than a leading search platform. Google has long been evolving as a media platform for accomplishing everyday tasks, and in recent years, it has looked to emerging technology such as virtual reality to do so. Google needs to demonstrate to its advertisers that it can keep consumers inside the Google ecosystem, and simply making search better is not enough to do that.

If Google can pull off a future defined by AI, it will protect its advertising base. But here again, Amazon looms as a threat. Amazon is making its own investments into AI to be a smarter platform for its customers, both online and offline.

The competition between Google and Amazon is good for consumers and advertisers. Consumers should benefit from more personalized services while businesses have more choices to advertise. Choice is good. And Google wants to be the first choice. Contact us to learn more about how to thrive with online advertising with giants such as Google and Amazon.