Google I/O 2023: Google Unveils Huge New AI Features and Tools
At Google I/0 2023, the search engine giant announced groundbreaking new features and advancements that could drastically influence and shape the future of search marketing.
In summary, Google announced:
- A search experience that uses generative AI to deliver personalised, intricate and detailed search results to a user query.
- A new ‘Perspectives’ tool that highlights images, posts, and video content that offers users a more immersive experience, offering different viewpoints.
Let’s look at these in a little more detail and how they could influence SEO:
Generative AI (AKA the Search Generative Experience, or SGE)
This new generative AI will be able to answer more detailed questions in a succinct and easy-to-understand way, providing the user with key, digestible information from in-depth, valuable resources.
For example, Google’s generative AI can answer complex queries like finding three possible options for a family of four (with one vegetarian and one vegan) by providing suggestions for nearby restaurants and suggestions for further exploration.
SGE can also make online shopping much more comprehensive, providing users with detailed product information, ratings, reviews, prices and imagery in exciting new ways.
More noticeably, however, the generative AI’s features include the ability for users to adapt and add to their initial search query via an innovative chat function. If you think of how AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bard can refine their generated content based on your prompts, SGE can fine-tune the results to find more appropriate and closer matches to content that will help answer your initial search query. What’s more, this will be very conversational and colloquial, making the function feel very ‘humanistic’.
As you may well know, generative AI and large language models (LLM) – such as those found in ChatGPT and Bard – have some limitations in content accuracy and reliability. Therefore, particularly for highly-regulated industries like finance or healthcare, the quality and authoritativeness of AI-driven search results may be somewhat flawed. If you operate in this sector, you may not be able to reap all the true benefits of this new search function yet, but this is expected to be ironed out over time.
The ‘Perspectives’ Feature
Alongside the new generative AI feature, Google’s innovative ‘Perspectives’ tool will be able to highlight videos, images and copy from social media platforms, discussion boards, forums, Q&A sites, and so on, to help users understand subjects and topics through different perspectives, opinions and experiences of others. In other words, this tool will provide a more human-focused dialogue and spin on the search query results.
For example, if someone is looking for advice on finding freelance work in a new country, the ‘Perspectives’ filter will show results that contain personal tips and guidance from these types of online sources.
The aim of this ‘Perspectives’ tool is to enhance review and user-generated content quality in search results, giving credibility to individuals with deep knowledge and/or first-hand experience on the subject.
From our perspective, this new ‘Perspectives’ tool aligns closely with Google’s emphasis on E-E-A-T and authorship, which we have previously documented in detail. We – and Google itself – have waxed lyrical about the importance of authoritative, valuable and engaging content, and it is reassuring to know that Google still values these as highly as ever. The extensive content writing and research that forms part of the wide scope of work we do for our valued clients, still requires heavy input, diligence and supervision from gifted content writers. We all know that AI tools can curate content on request and at speed, but it’s clear to see that human-generated content still remains the crucial ingredient for a positive, engaging user experience, especially with this imminent new interface.
A look at what’s next for AI and Google Search | Google I/O 2023
What does this mean?
Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai insisted that the company intends to be ‘bold and responsible’ when it comes to using generative AI. After all, it’s not surprising considering the company recently suffered $100 billion in market losses following a bad Bard demo.
As far as we are concerned, here at Artemis Marketing, we had foreseen such innovative new developments were on the horizon. As such, we are firmly in a strong position to help all of our clients, regardless of their industry, take advantage of this new – and quite frankly, exciting – change to the modern search landscape.
As our history will tell you, we are no strangers to adapting to change. We’ve helped clients past and present overcome short- and long-term obstacles that the ever-evolving SEO landscape puts in front of us. From the Google Panda update to the Core Web Vitals ranking factors for user experience, we’ve seen our fair share of important changes that have influenced how you best go about optimising your website, attracting organic traffic and ranking higher in SERPs.
We have been adapting to – and embracing – the growing presence of AI and its influence on search. We are excited about these upcoming features and how we can help our clients take advantage of these diverse, new, incredible ranking opportunities. We have monitored the AI landscape closely for years, and have always sought ways in which we can help our clients retain that competitive edge in the developing world of SEO. With AI features now closer than ever, we foresee good things happening.
