Most of us agree that search is broken. It has not changed much in terms of user experience over the last two decades. To make matters worse, due to the SEO/ad driven focus, the results from search are often preceded by advertising.
Gen Z has realised this and are using TikTok and other platforms as de-facto search mechanisms.
Recently, Google announced Google perspectives as a mechanism to bring human perspectives into search results. Perspectives can originate from sources such as Reddit, Stack overflow, YouTube videos etc
Here are some comments on the use of the perspectives feature with regards to AI
- The original motivation of the perspectives feature is Gen Z (TikTok) but it also has an impact on AI
- Understanding the value of specific perspectives to the search response is not going to be easy and brands will have to increase their social media presence to be visible in this new world.
- However, the biggest benefit is, over time, these perspectives could arise from LLMs
- However, perspectives are not conversations and they are not interactive. We are already seeing that the conversational experience is pulling people away from the web ex stack overflow traffic has dropped
In addition to perspectives, search results can be directly improved with generative AI
Let’s take a question like “what’s better for a family with kids under 3 and a dog, bryce canyon or arches.” Normally, you might break this one question down into smaller ones, sort through the vast information available, and start to piece things together yourself. With generative AI, Search can do some of that heavy lifting for you.
However, neither of these are conversations – like chatGPT.
However, you get the context carried over from question to question to continue your exploration.
Over time, I see both these features improving as LLMs and generative AI complement search
