Google Bard vs. Bing Chat GPT: War of AI-powered search engines

^{Google Bard vs. Bing Chat GPT: War of AI-powered search engines}

The war of AI-powered search engines has begun!

We could even add Baidu-Ernie, which is also entering the race for intelligent conversations, although there is a high probability that, like Baidu currently is, its scope will remain only in China unlike the first two protagonists.

Google has been dominant for years, holding nearly 95% of the world's internet search market share, but is caught off guard by the arrival of Chat GPT, and especially by the agreement with Microsoft Bing that links AI to internet search.

Google has also been working on the subject for years, but did not expect its "weaker" competitor to respond so quickly and is forced to respond as early as 2023.

What are the stakes for search engines themselves? What are the stakes for website SEO, advertisers?

We will try to decipher them here.

However, let's start by defining them.

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What is CHAT GPT ?

CHAT GPT is a natural language processing model developed by OpenAI. It is designed to understand and generate human language in a way that is similar to humans.

Based on a neural network architecture called "transformer," Chat GPT can process large amounts of text to learn how to predict the next words in a text sequence.

Thanks to this, Chat GPT is capable of answering a variety of natural language questions and tasks, such as language translation, text comprehension, text generation, and many others.

In summary, Chat GPT is a tool designed to understand and generate natural language, and it has been trained on large amounts of textual data to be able to understand and produce text in multiple languages.

Bing, Microsoft's search engine and challenger to Google, has partnered with Open AI to develop a more performant, or complementary, search engine that enriches web search results and attempts to provide more comprehensive results with the touch of artificial intelligence.

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What is BARD ?

Bard is a natural language processing model developed by Google that aims to improve natural language understanding and generation. Like Chat GPT, Bard is based on a neural network architecture called Transformer and uses massive training on textual data to improve its performance.

However, there are some differences between Bard and Chat GPT. Bard was designed with a more specific goal in mind, which is to improve the understanding of natural language search queries on Google. It is also optimized to work on mobile devices, which means it is lighter and faster than many other natural language models.

In summary, Bard is a natural language processing model developed by Google that was specifically designed to improve understanding of natural language search queries on Google, especially on mobile devices.

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What are the challenges of AI-powered Internet search?

The use of AI to enhance internet search presents several important issues that need to be examined. Here are some of these issues:

1. Quality and relevance of search results with AI:The use of AI to improve internet search can potentially enhance the quality and relevance of search results.

However, this can also lead to monopolization of information, where big tech companies developing these technologies could influence search results based on their commercial interests.

Who will be able to control this bias, whether it be for Bing or Google?

As long as we were in rankings and site rankings, there was potentially a prism of "commercial favoritism" (cf. SEA - Search Engine Adversised), but no bias of opinion.

With the arrival of AI, who will ensure that these biases, these allegations are objective and potentially contestable for some?

2. Data Privacy:AI-based search models require large amounts of data to function effectively, which raises concerns about data privacy.

Users may not be aware of the amount of data they are sharing and how this data is being used. Even less than they are today.

3. Impact on Employment:The use of AI to improve internet search could potentially impact employment in industries related to research, including libraries, archives, and museums.

Likewise, we can imagine that human content production is becoming increasingly robotic, and content production for websites is increasingly generated by machines and less by humans.

4. Reliability of Information Sources:While AI-powered internet search can help improve the quality of search results, it can also make it harder to distinguish between reliable and unreliable information sources.

AI algorithms may rank results based on popularity or engagement, rather than reliability or accuracy of information.

5. Excessive Personalization of Search Results in SERPs:AI algorithms can use personal data to personalize search results based on the user's preferences and behaviors.

While this can be helpful for some searches, it can also lead to excessive personalization and filter bubbles, where users are only exposed to information that aligns with their opinions and interests.

6. Cost and Access to Resources:AI-based search models require large amounts of data, computation, and IT infrastructure to function effectively.

This can make the use of these technologies expensive for small businesses or non-profit organizations that do not have the necessary resources to afford these costs.

7. Regulation and Accountability:As with many other AI applications, AI-powered internet search raises issues of regulation and accountability.

Companies developing these technologies must be responsible for how they use data, ensure transparency of algorithms and search results, and comply with data protection and privacy laws and standards.

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In summary, AI-powered Internet research can offer significant advantages in terms of quality, relevance, and personalization of search results, but it also raises a number of important concerns regarding data protection, reliability of information sources, regulation, and costs.

Therefore, it is important that these issues are proactively addressed to maximize the potential benefits of these technologies while minimizing risks.

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Google Bard vs CHAT GPT. Who will win?

It takes a wise person to predict at this stage, but one thing is certain, the cards could be shuffled based on the relevance that users will find when using one or both search engines.

It can even be assumed quite easily that in the beginning, searches will be carried out on both sides to observe which one provides the best information, and ultimately, both could be kept in use, or only the one with the most relevant responses will be kept.

In any case, there could be indirect big losers, such as Wikipedia, Google and Microsoft providers themselves if they fail to retain sponsored links (and therefore the advertising revenue associated with those same sponsored links).

It can be imagined that, in order to avoid killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, intelligent search results will skillfully complement the SERPs without taking up all the space that is limited.

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Possible consequences of AI-powered search engines

Did Prabhakar Raghavan, Vice President of the American giant Google, announce the arrival of Bard too early? A simple test error of Bard caused Google to lose $100 billion of market capitalization in one day. As a result, we can already predict brutal and violent movements in the coming months.

With the evolution of AI, internet users are seeking more informative and detailed answers instead of simply searching for sites on Google, Bing, and other search engines. Therefore, search engines must differentiate between informative and transactional searches. The intention of the search will determine the face of the SERP, and it will be important to manage the space for "discussion" on smartphones, which will continue to coexist with clickable links. It appears that Bing - Chat GPT already includes micro-links in enriched conversational content.

The rankings of websites will also change with the implementation of AI. As the place becomes more valuable, what will become of sponsored links and SEO rankings of websites? This change will likely complicate the work of SEO agencies and/or offer them other positioning opportunities. It is also highly probable that Bing will regain market share from Google, and that the focus of search engine optimization will shift from Google to both search engines.

The quality perceived by internet users and the perceived relevance of mixed transactional and informative search results will determine the extent to which Google loses market share to Bing. However, it is likely that Bing will regain market share after years of decline and a new generation of search engines. The user experience and quality of answers will be at the heart of the debates over market share losses or gains (and/or losses for Google).

The changes will also affect transactional searches and e-commerce sites. What will happen to Google Shopping in a restricted SERP environment? Either the conversational aspect will be relegated to a dialogue box on the right of the classic results or it will be intertwined with the URL ranking, which could lead to a decrease in the space reserved for sponsored ads. This could potentially cost some e-commerce sites millions of euros or allow only the largest to preempt the remaining best spots to the detriment of the "smaller" ones.

The changes will also have implications for the SEO industry. On the one hand, the content of websites may be replaced by Featured Snippets that are even more expanded and improved. On the other hand, the engines will still require fresh and innovative content, produced not by the news sites, media, blogs, etc. but by themselves. SEO agencies, which previously focused primarily on Google, will now have to work more with Bing in addition to Google.

One thing is certain: end clients will need more advice to remain well-positioned with the AI touch. Optimize 360 is promoting its clients within both enriched systems. The changes will also affect advertisers. As mentioned earlier with Google Shopping, a new version of SERP may result in fewer places available for sponsored links, such as Google Ads and Bing Ads. Thus, advertisers can expect higher advertising auction costs to continue promoting their businesses.