The article doesn't seem to back up its headline at all.
Google is under antitrust investigation for ads, while it talks about the threat to the company being AI. The main point of the article is:
> It would be a lot easier Google could move fast and break things... But with the full force of the US government bearing down on it, the search giant can’t do that now... Google will need to conduct itself slowly and tentatively in order to avoid jeopardizing itself in its battle with the Justice Department.
Sure it might need to move more slowly in its ads business (not a good time to buy an ads-related startup). But I see no evidence Google will need to act "slowly and tentatively" in terms of incorporating chatbot functionality into Search.
So I don't see anything "screwing" Google about this at all, not in the least.
One of the potential issues a lot of people are speculating about is the lower impression counts. For example - when trying to write a script using some api's I'm not super familiar with, I might do 6+ google searches. This will be similar for a lot of fields when trying to find an answer to something, news, other research, etc.
That means you're loading a fresh page of ads every search AND all the ads on those sites too.
With chatGPT (And I'm aware Google has something similar) - I can (and have) just asked it a question, and it will answer/write entire scripts for me. That means there's only a single page load.
Basically people are speculating Google may struggle to monetize a chatbot to the extent they can monetize every single search + site load. You certainly _can_ the speculation is whether the drastically lower impression counts will impact their overall profitability.
Honestly I don't think it's going to make much of a difference.
The real money is in ads that are targeted to a search -- whether you're asking Search or a chatbot for "best fleece half-zip for men" you'll get shown the same ads targeted to that.
While if you're asking it to write a script for you... you probably were to busy to be even looking at or clicking the ads Google was showing anyways back when you were looking for Stack Overflow answers, no matter if it took 100 searches. (There's also nothing stopping Google from showing you 3 new ads before each new chatbot response.)
I have full faith in Google figuring out how to insert just as many ads as before. ;)
> I have full faith in Google figuring out how to insert just as many ads as before. ;)
Oh they will I'm sure - I'm just not sure if they'll make _as much_ or not. Basically the question is if they can recover the cost per impression money to cost per click IMO.
Or maybe they pivot to something way worse - like in-content ads. Oh man imagine "best fleece half-zip for men" - "The most highly recommended and best option is the [insert marketing here but make it sound great and natural]".
But yeah I highly doubt their existence is in jeopardy or anything like that.
Google is under antitrust investigation for ads, while it talks about the threat to the company being AI. The main point of the article is:
> It would be a lot easier Google could move fast and break things... But with the full force of the US government bearing down on it, the search giant can’t do that now... Google will need to conduct itself slowly and tentatively in order to avoid jeopardizing itself in its battle with the Justice Department.
Sure it might need to move more slowly in its ads business (not a good time to buy an ads-related startup). But I see no evidence Google will need to act "slowly and tentatively" in terms of incorporating chatbot functionality into Search.
So I don't see anything "screwing" Google about this at all, not in the least.