

Season 4, Episode 10: AI Overviews and consequences for the open web (with Paul Bannister)
27 snips Nov 6, 2024
Paul Bannister, Chief Strategy Officer at Raptive, delves into the implications of Google's AI Overviews for web publishers. He discusses how these AI tools are perceived by publishers and their potential impact on traffic. The conversation touches on Google's strategy regarding the Open Web and competition from LLM-based chatbots. Bannister also explores whether AI Overviews might incentivize publishers to license their data and examines the significance of human-generated content in an increasingly AI-driven digital landscape.
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AI Overviews and Zero-Click Search
- Google's AI Overviews aim to answer user queries directly on Google, reducing clicks to external websites.
- This strategy, like zero-click search, prioritizes Google's engagement over publisher traffic.
Impact on Publisher Traffic
- AI Overviews haven't significantly impacted publisher traffic yet due to limited implementation after initial issues.
- Current impact is mainly on complex searches, not simpler ones where webpages already provide adequate answers.
Loss of Ad Tech and Inventory Creation
- Google losing its ad tech business might incentivize them to create more non-contextual ad inventory on their platform.
- AI Overviews could facilitate this by driving users down rabbit holes, enabling targeted ad placements.