By integrating AI into search results, Google puts publishers who lose traffic in crisis. But it also damages itself. It is a necessary move to defend against ChatGPT.
Chess has always been considered much more than a game, often a metaphor for life. Especially in competitive scenarios. There is a particular situation in chess, the Zugzwang: It is a German term that phonetically already whispers something unpleasant, it literally means “forced to move”. The player in this situation must make a move, but any move he makes damages him. Google is exactly in a Zugzwang with the introduction of artificial intelligence in its searches. To understand why we must go in order and start from the beginning.
In recent months, online searches have experienced an unprecedented transformation. This is not a simple technical update but a paradigm shift: artificial intelligence has entered the heart of Google and has redesigned the dynamics between those who produce content and those who consume it. With the introduction of AI Overviews, the automatic summaries proposed by Google, the user obtains the answer to their question directly without the need to click on the links of the sites that have built that information with work and investments. The consequence is the so-called zero-click searcha phenomenon that today puts the entire publishing system in crisis. The data speaks clearly. According to research from Authoritas, a site previously ranked first in search results could lose around 79% of its traffic for that query if the results were served below an AI overview. A colossal earthquake that pulverizes enormous investments at all levels.
Along the same lines, a study by the Pew Research Center shows that the presence of AI-generated summaries makes users almost twice less likely to click on links on search pages than when such summaries are not present. Newspapers like MailOnline have seen reductions of 56% on desktop and 48% on mobile in queries where automatic responses appear. For publishers, a devastating blow, which translates into fewer readers, less advertising revenue, less public relevance. It is not surprising that many have raised their voices accusing Google of wanting to harm them. Mountain View, scrambling, responded by claiming that the data in its possession would indicate higher quality clicks towards the sites and that the summaries in any case contain links to in-depth sites.
The truth is, however, that Google is just as damaged from this move since its business model is also based on the number of searches carried out and page scrolling which, if drastically reduced, would reduce advertising revenue.
Why then did she make a move that harms her and the publishers too? For survival. Artificial intelligence, ChatGPT to be exact, is the emerging threat. And it’s very concrete. Companies the size of Google can only fail when something arises that replaces the function. Smartphones have made the camera useless, now limited to a niche. Digital music CDs. Spotify all traditional distribution. Netflix is eliminating traditional TV and cinema. And so on, there are many cases. The history of Neanderthals and homo Sapiens repeating itself. ChatGPT is much more than Sapiens because it not only finds information but processes it, merges it, synthesizes it, drastically reducing time and cognitive effort (a factor not to be overlooked).
A paradigm shift that can make the search engine suddenly obsolete. And Google understands this very well. For this reason it ended up in a Zugzwang: it was forced to move in a direction that damages it in order to compete as a last resort directly in the territory of the emerging enemy. We’re not talking about conquering more of the market, we’re talking about surviving a paradigm shift.
Let’s not forget that it has also launched a direct competitor which is Gemini. His move from a strategic point of view should be read from two aspects: trying to limit the loss of users by providing a reasoned summary and reducing and slowing down the adversary’s growth as much as possible. Let’s not forget that what is happening to Google is also happening to many other sectors and professions. In the coming years the world will be rewritten again, as happened in the 2000s.
Publishers who now believe that Google is the enemy have not fully understood the transformation underway. They do not understand that the use of information will be intermediated by systems such as ChatGPT and in such a scenario the current advertising model loses meaning. We await the next moves.
