Uh Oh.. Did AI Just KILL Websites?
The Future of the Web
In this section, the speaker discusses how conversational AI is going to change the delicate balance of how the internet works and might end up killing the concept of a website as we know it.
The Birth of Websites
- Websites started 20 years ago as blobs of information and content mostly in text form.
- They were not motivated by money but by passion for a specific topic.
- Finding things was really painful, you had to know the websites you were after.
- Search engines tried to organize with mass by categories and finally Google cracked the code of proper search.
The Rise of SEO
- In December 2000, Google launched AdWords and ads started to appear in Google search results.
- Website owners and businesses realized that having traffic coming to their website was not just bragging rights with friends anymore.
- As more people explored the web from a search engine group, a silent pact or alliance was formed between websites and search engines.
- This agreement allowed websites to get their content indexed for free while search engines would send them users and traffic.
- This gave birth to modern web with all its websites.
Monetizing Traffic
- Independent websites found another way to monetize their traffic: affiliate links.
- By writing articles about specific products or services, they could earn a percentage when someone buys from an e-commerce store using their link.
Disruptive AI
- Conversational AI is here to stay; chat GPT was released on November 30th, 2022, and became the fastest piece of tech to reach 100 million users.
- Microsoft and Google are battling it out to get real conversational AI into search.
- This AI war is going to completely change the delicate balance of how the internet itself works.
- It doesn't matter who wins this AI battle because whichever way it goes, things are about to change.
The Problem with the Silent Agreement
- This system fully relies on one link: traffic for access to content.
- This silent agreement represents billions of dollars in revenue, thousands of companies, and hundreds of thousands of jobs.
- AI search chatbots are about to turn this balance upside down.
Learn About Artificial Intelligence with Brilliant
In this section, the speaker talks about how important it is to understand artificial intelligence and how Brilliant.org can help you learn more about it.
Why Learn About Artificial Intelligence?
- Artificial intelligence is not a gimmick or fad; it's here to stay.
- Understanding something so seemingly complex like AI can be overwhelming.
- Those who really understand how artificial intelligence works at its core will be able to ride this wave.
How Brilliant Can Help You Learn
- Brilliant.org is the best way to learn about artificial intelligence.
- The platform offers courses on topics such as artificial neural networks and reinforcement learning.
- The search engine course teaches you how search engines really work.
- What's great about Brilliant is that you can fit learning into your day even if you have a busy schedule.
The Future of AI Chatbots and Websites
In this section, the speaker discusses how AI chatbots may replace traditional websites as the primary source of information for users.
The Rise of AI Chatbots
- Google and Bing plan to integrate chatbots alongside traditional search results.
- As people shift towards using chatbots, traditional search results will get fewer clicks.
- Tech companies use usage data to make product decisions, so if people stop using traditional search results, search engines may remove them altogether.
Implications for Websites
- If chatbots provide all necessary information, there will be no incentive for users to visit ad-driven websites.
- Traffic to informational websites will drop dramatically.
- Search engines need to find a way to monetize chatbots by injecting ads contextually into responses or making them paid subscriptions.
Monetizing Content Creation
- Search engines could pay content creators based on how much their content is used by an AI to provide an answer.
- This would likely lead to the death of traditional SEO since websites would no longer need to create entire sites just for an AI to produce some answer in a chatbot.
The Future of Search Engine Optimization
This section discusses the possibility of AI chatbots changing search engine optimization and how it could affect the way people use websites.
AI Chatbots and SEO
- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella suggests that AI chatbots may change search engine optimization into something more like "AI feeding optimization."
- The new being is designed to heavily feature links to source material, inviting users to learn more about what the AI is suggesting.
- While people may still explore websites after using an AI chatbot, they may only need to visit one or two instead of 9 or 10.
- In many cases, AI search engines are completely wrong, so websites may not disappear entirely.
Platforms vs. Websites
- Online platforms such as YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, and Substack are becoming gateways to the internet for most people because they allow independent content creation.
- People and websites that were spending time making SEO optimized content may transition to other platforms instead.
- An AI search chatbot could be a way to bridge the gap between search and online platforms.
Integration with Platforms
- Today, integration between search engines like Google or Bing and platforms like Reddit or YouTube is poor because these platforms never had much interest in opening up their content library completely to search engines.
The Impact of AI on Search Engines and User-Generated Content
In this section, the speaker discusses how AI will affect search engines and user-generated content. They also talk about how platforms are starting to monetize more heavily and pass down advertising revenue to creators.
The Future of AI in Search Engines
- Tick Tock is starting to monetize more heavily, and platforms like Substack or Medium allow you to monetize directly the content that you create.
- It's still pretty early days in the way that AI is going to be affecting search engines, and no one has really come up with the greatest version of how that's going to work yet.
- If websites stop making content because everyone is using these chatbots to get information, there's going to be nothing for these chatbots to scrape from.
- While it's useful for these chatbots to be giving us broader answers in paragraph form, I'm not sure about the speed of adoption.
David Imel's Opinion on AI in Search Engines
- David Imel believes that there is a feedback loop problem where if websites stop making content because everyone is using these chatbots to get information, there's going to be nothing for these chatbots to scrape from.
- David thinks that most people who want to do their research and have more interest in a thing that isn't just a what's the capital of Japan are probably going to be digging into those links anyway.
- There will be a large period of time where the market matures before we see some sort of collapse of the internet or anything like that.
Conclusion
- As all of this unfolds, you can subscribe to the speaker's channel and watch more videos.