Amid a wave of recent search AI updates, marketers are being urged to “double down” on brand fundamentals, while adapting to changes.
It’s been a busy few weeks for AI research.
On October 31, OpenAI launched its long-awaited search functionality within ChatGPT. Allowing paid users to receive links to relevant web sources without needing to visit a separate search engine, this update places ChatGPT in more direct competition with traditional search engines.
Google also recently expanded its AI Previews – AI-generated summaries at the top of search results – to more than 100 countries, following the rollout of ads in these Previews in the US in early October.
Meanwhile, new figures from the Advertising Association (AA) and WARC show advertising spend on search. increased by 12.7% between April and June. During the first half of the year, search advertising increased by more than twice the pace of the first half of 2023according to the IAB. Search remains the dominant player when it comes to digital ad spend, with an investment of £7.87 billion in the first half of the year alone.
What does all this mean for marketers and how should they manage these changes?
