Google’s AI mode – more questions than answers

By: Chris Bignell, CEO

Google’s decision last week to offer AI mode search on its homepage has been widely reported, but I’m not sure the seismic nature of this shift has been fully explored; possibly not even by Google. 

This is a huge moment with enormous implications for business and a massive gamble by Google. For PR and marketing professionals, it’s also the start of a complete reshaping of our industry.

History

Search was a $175 billion revenue stream for Google in 2023, representing more than half of the company’s revenue.   Bringing AI mode to the Google homepage is the biggest shift in the market for 25 years.

AI mode on Google.com encourages me to ask detailed questions to get a nuanced answer.  To test it out, I asked it how to make a website for my (imaginary) holiday rental villa in Spain – both in traditional mode and AI mode.

A tale of two modes

Here’s the answer in AI mode:

And here’s the traditional mode answer:

The differences? 

I’d say the big difference is that Google AI mode has primarily given me the answer to my question and then a series of links to support that answer. By contrast, historically, Google would serve me the links primarily and expect me - the user, to formulate my own answer. 

Then, the obvious immediate change is that AI mode massively reduces the importance of sponsorship and advertising.  There’s no sponsored first answer (yet); instead, the page serves up links to the right of the generated response – none of which say “Sponsored”.  Are these paid-for links? Or the links Google thinks are the most relevant?  And if so, how do I get my company in those links?

The next thing I notice is that the AI answer includes four options of website hosting platforms in its generated response. 

Two things strike me right away:

• The SEO industry is going to have to do a huge amount of heavy lifting to figure out how Google decides what to include here

• Google needs to decide if advertising is going to influence the narrative responses in the AI answers, and be transparent about this

For example, in the AI mode above, the first response is “choose a website builder”.  Will advertising influence the order in which Google serves up companies here (ie can Wix or Squarespace buy first place?).  And if not, what will influence it? Reputation? Google reviews? Reddit?

The gamble

Effectively, Google is gambling more than 50 percent of its revenue on getting this right.  And depending on the speed of adoption of AI search mode on its homepage, it may not have long to experiment. It also seems to only be offering advertisers vague guidance right now on how AI mode is going to work.

I appreciate that – with competing AI services, Google has no choice, but it also has no choice but to get this right – and do so quickly.  Because half its revenue depends on this.  In a BBC article, The Daily Mail already claims the number of people who click its links from Google search results has fallen by around 50 percent on both desktop and mobile traffic since Google introduced its AI Overview feature. That’s 50 percent – in a week…

For businesses that have invested in Google to deliver traffic, either through organic or sponsorship, the rules are changing and likely to remain in flux for some time.

Does Google rate Google? 

This raises some really important issues for the industry. To illustrate this, I asked Google if Google was a good search engine in both traditional and AI mode.

Traditional mode:

AI mode:

There’s a big difference between the two modes.  Traditional mode has an AI overview that says, “Yes Google is a good search engine”.  AI mode seems much less convinced and gives a more considered and subtle response.  For me, this has massive implications for brand reputation management:

• Will Google always give me the same answer to a question?

• Will AI and traditional mode match? (in this case the answer is clearly “no”)

• Where is the different information coming from in each case?

• How does Google categorise conflicting information – by age? Site reputation? Reviews?

The PR and communication challenge

The world’s biggest search engine is changing rapidly, with enormous implications for brand reputation.  Understanding the source of information Google is using in AI mode is going to be messy for a while, and SEO management will require consideration of AI and traditional search; even before considering the results delivered by Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity and a host of other AI services.

Some in the industry will, no doubt, be suggesting the answer is to continue dropping keywords into thought leadership content, like nothing has changed.  But I think that misses both the point and the bigger opportunity.  Treating AI search like SEO is bound to fail, since the nuance of what is served up by AI is so different to that of search.

As I recently discussed in this blog with Gavin Loader from global tech agency network, Collectivist, and Simon Schnieders from B2B SEO Agency Blue Array, early research suggests Google is prioritising information from trusted sources like the media, peer-reviewed reports, and user forums where the system can corroborate information.   This is both a blessing and a curse.  Where everything ever written is rosy, that’s going to bring a fantastic result, but the ability to ‘bury bad news’ with a slew of good stories – always a dubious PR practice anyway – won’t hide the past like it has previously in this newly nuanced world.

But, having a clearer understanding of exactly how these different search platforms operate and the impact on a brand’s reputation management is going to be difficult while the industry shakes out. Afterall, right now, even Google is unsure.  Even understanding the impact of AI search – what you can buy, what you can’t and what Google thinks is important – will be a critical part of influencing public perceptions in the future.

If your brand wants to find out more about how AI search is influencing its reputation and how you can go about impacting this, give me a shout.  We can help you navigate your way around this evolving landscape.