For those of us that can, cast your mind back to when we relied on sites like AltaVista, Ask and even Dogpile. We would wait for long periods of time for these engines to produce results from the web.
Back then, Yahoo was the king of search until we saw Google enter the arena, and a whole new business model was created. The strength of the search engine only climbed stronger and stronger.
However, we are on a new dawn now; the next generation is coming through. Alpha is going to be a completely different consumer and there are factors to consider.
Do we truly imagine the next generation loading up a search engine and typing in what they are looking for? It sounds far too taxing on their time. Here are the key areas that I see changing the way we search the web and our dependence on the search engine:
Ambient Technology
Alexas and Google Homes, among many others are flooding homes across the U.S.. In a recent episode of trying to use an Alexa outside its comfort zone in a hotel, it dawned on me that the technology head within the hardware, the software that powers my query, still has some considerable development to go. However, the generation we know as Alpha has another seven years until they reach the age of adulthood. We will not only see considerable development in this technology, but they will also have never known a life without such ambient technology.
Couple this with further growth and enhancements from Siri and other voice activated mobile assistants. The thought that someone will continue to open a browser on either a mobile or desktop device and search what they are looking for will become a less and less common thing to do.
Conversational AI
This is a true search engine behavior slayer here, in my opinion. With the level of sophistication we are seeing with ChapGPT 4.0 and other comparable on the market, they will surely act as the lenses to the digital world that we all use to find information we are looking for. However with both these points in mind, think of the impact this will have on the business model that is the search engine, the potential revenue change and the way that pretty much every website on the planet is currently running.
My prediction is that conversational AI tech like ChatGPT will be the software in the ambient technology within our homes.
The Potential Impact
There are two worlds to search engines when you are trying to rank and be indexed: Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEM is when we carefully sponsor key words we wish to be found for and hope that our audience click on those links. These clicks come at a cost. Whereas the world of SEO is different, it’s about ranking first in the free listings box, which is the white space on pages, and some companies go to great lengths to build websites that conform to an extremely strict set of criteria.
Many of the larger companies employ a strategy to make sure they tackle both SEM and SEO, to which the search engine makes money from the page of potential clicks on the sponsored links that reside front and center of the page, commanding most of the proverbial foot flow.
As we can all relate, it’s rare that you find exactly what you are looking for first click, so each search page is typically worth several clicks.
But what happens when you conduct such a search verbally with no screen in front of you and the concept of the deliverable (the final destination for the user) is pure accuracy? This will literally transform the revenue model for the search engine. It could be either damaging or it may require an entire new way of thinking when it comes to billing the user.
Summary
The way we consume the web is changing. The increasing move towards voice command, conversational expression, search and query will see an entire new breed of structure. This will only be further increased as virtual reality and metaverses continue to gain popularity.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
Arran Stewart
Arran James Stewart is the co-founder and CVO of blockchain recruitment platform Job.com. Relying on a decade worth of experience in the recruitment industry, Arran has consistently sought to bring recruitment to the cutting edge of technology. Arran helped develop one of the world’s first multi-post to media buy talent attraction portals, and also helped reinvent the way job content found candidates through utilizing matching technology against job aggregation. Arran is currently launching the first blockchain recruitment platform with Job.com – which aims to be the most secure, efficient, and transparent hiring process ever. As a first-mover in online recruitment technology with a decade of experience in recruitment, Arran’s expertise has been featured in Forbes, Reuters, Wired, and Hacker Noon, among other publications.
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