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This week in SEO news we saw an interview from podcast darling Lenny Rachitsky with Google’s VP of Product, Robby Stein, who did some great PR for how Google is baking in all kinds of wonderful AI-goodness into it’s traditional core search product – you know, the one that tuned Google into a behemoth of Silicon Value and makes them billions of dollars a year.
Now, before we jump into the details here, I must point out that, typically in a high profile interview like this, the goal is to get people hyped up about new product features and paint a pretty picture for Google’s stakeholders – so I don’t ever expect a company rep to not-sugar coat everything or spill any secret beans. And I fully expect a lie or two – if not, they wouldn’t be doing their job!
The 3 main takeaways from the interview deal with how Google is adding AI into it’s core search product:
- AI Overviews (already in search)
- AI Mode for certain search queries (user decides to use if they want to)
- Multimodal Search (mostly a niche mobile-first function to like, search for products and info on things via an image).
So not trusting every word out of his mouth aside, I was very excited to hear again (this would not be the first time) a line that reinforces a very obvious hill I have been standing on all year when it comes to Google’s AI Mode and AI search in general.
If you don’t want to sit through the whole interview, both SEJ and SE Roundtable has excepts worth catching up on, but the one quote from Stein made me kinda giggle a bit:
“I think there’s an opportunity for these to come closer together. I think that’s what AI Mode represents, at least for the core AI experiences. But I think of them as very complementary to the core search product.
And so you should be able to not have to think about where you’re asking a question. Ultimately, you just go to Google.”
The key phrase here is “complimentary to the core search product”.
Let me say that again for all the SEOs that for months now have been talking about the “inevitable” switch to AI Mode as the default Google search product: “complimentary to the core search product”.
Google was never, ever going to upend it’s basic (for the user) core search product. But when AI Mode was announced, the GEO-AEO crowd jumped on the news as if Google was months away from completely changing it’s core product over night, despite the simple fact that AI mode does not quite yet have ads and also isn’t necessary for a very significant percentage of searches.
Yes, you heard that right. AI isn’t necessary for a lot of search! From day one of the ChatGPT-is-going-to-kill-Google hype, it never made any sense to me why so many people would think that a simple tool like Google would suddenly transform itself from something that just works (very well, I might add), to something way more complicated.
Last week I took our dog to the vet, and the vet gave me the name of a special comb for her (she is shaggy x10). I Googled the comb and bought it. I didn’t need to have a goddamn conversation with an AI to solve this problem.
Sometimes I look for recipes for things and I want to see a bunch of different examples so I can kinda cobble my own together with the things I have in the kitchen. I don’t need to write a story about my situation and have the AI cobble the story together for me. BUT maybe in my search I do – and that’s how AI Mode is going to work in Google Search. The interface will by default be the same, but along the way a button or prompt might pop up and take over the search in a more conversational format.
That experience makes sense. That is helpful to a user. And if I don’t want that nonsense, I can continue on my way searching the traditional way – because it works.
Google is baking in all these little AI search features the same way it’s been baking in things in search for years. I read a quote that the implications of these new features are “profound” for SEOs.
Are they really? We’ve had AI overviews for quite some time now, and while they were “profound” at first, and many of us have lost traffic because of them, the world hasn’t ended. Yes, it’s had an impact on online publishers who have a certain business model, but that’s just a cross-section of those who work in SEO.
You know what had a huge profound impact too? Google’s E-Commerce SERPS. It’s here more than anywhere that the traditional “10 Blue Links” been disrupted, but that doesn’t nearly get talked about as much as AI overviews or AI mode.
While drafting this up I saw some posts on LinkedIn talking about this interview and man, it’s just so interesting how different people can have different takes on things. Or, that some of us live in the real world and the others are just hyping shit for the sake of hype.
“The 10 Blue Links Era is Officially Over”
No, it’s not – Robby straight up says that AI Mode is complimentary to the core search product.
My take from the interview is that, yes, Google is going to integrate AI Mode into certain types of searches and this is going to introduce new challenges to SEO, much like the challenges of new features in the SERPS have impacted our roles in the past.
“Content Strategy must go multimodal. Text, images, and video will all service as entry points into discovery”
Yeah, you could have said that back in 2005-2010 as Instagram and YouTube were taking off. The multimodal search function is neat but I don’t see how this is going to have any impact on anyone’s already existing content strategy as it’s just a feature. What are you even talking about?
“But search is evolving into a BRAIN”
Yes, search is growing and transforming, but the core search is still here. For a LOT of searches, the 10 blue links are still here, and they drive a significant amount of traffic and conversions for a lot of businesses in this world.
The AI-hype train has transformed some of our industry’s sharpest minds and brightest social media influencers into mindless AI-hype zombies, trolling us with posts and polls on when people think AI Mode is going to make the “switch”.
It’s not happening.