June in AI search: Key updates from Google and OpenAI

In the first week of June, we saw a British heatwave seemingly switch to monsoon season, and a more metaphorical downpour of updates in the AI search sphere.

Despite the fact that May saw a raft of updates from Google Marketing Live, the momentum at the search giant and its AI competitors continued this month.

So, we thought we’d take a look at recent announcements from the CMA, Google and OpenAI, and ask what they mean for marketing and your business.

The CMA enforces ‘opt-out’ requirements for AI search snippets

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that Google must allow online publishers to opt out of appearance in AI Overviews.

Under the UK’s digital markets competition regime, Google has been given strategic market status. The CMA defines this as having “substantial and entrenched market power and a position of strategic significance in a digital activity”. The associated ‘conduct requirements’ mean that publishers will now have effective tools to opt out of summarisation in search, and also prevent their content being used to ‘fine-tune’ AI models.

The CMA claims this will “secure a fairer deal for publishers and consumers and improve Google’s search services in the UK.”

Many of our clients at CTI Digital have raised concerns about being mis-quoted, misinterpreted, or mentioned without proper citation within AI Overviews. This new update seems to enforce attribution through “clear links” in AI search results, which is a valuable step forward.

However, it seems that the options to control your AI perception are now: accept a certain lack of control, or opt out entirely.

My main questions about opting out of AI Overviews: 

1. Will the opt-out option be site-wide by default? Or could there be an opportunity to retain AI search visibility whilst also protecting intellectual property on certain content types? This could be a really interesting evolution in certain strategies.

2. How will users respond, when we’re only just becoming familiar with, and confident in, AI search snippets? Though Google has reportedly reassured users that “withdrawing from AI search features [will] not affect how [sites] are ranked in the main search results”, it remains to be seen how evolving user behaviour will respond to this divorce between the two distinct sections of the SERPs.

Google Search Console (GSC) begins to offer AI Tracking

If you work in SEO, you’ve probably heard yourself explain “there’s no equivalent to GSC for AI search” a hundred times already. Of course, third-party tools are available and just about every SaaS solution has rolled out a new “AI tracking” bolt-on. But the familiar reliability of GSC metrics is something we have all yearned for in the new age of “GEO”. 

At last, Google Search Console has introduced a Generative AI Performance report! Our prayers have been answered!

Well, for some of us at least… The report is still rolling out, and is not currently available to all website owners.

My main questions at this stage: 

1. As almost all traditional searches now lead to an AI Mode follow up, will our tracking and reporting become slightly muddied?

2. The report will show impressions to your site from AI search (including at a page level). But when over 70% of AI prompts are unique and have never been searched before, how will this reporting tool help us better understand the new nature of “queries”?

See the announcement from Google and follow the link to check whether the report is live in your own search console.

ChatGPT introduces Ads

This one has been on the horizon for a while. Just as Google relies on ad revenue to function, we all suspected that OpenAI would offset their financial woes with an ad rollout.

ChatGPT launched ads on Free and Go plans at the beginning of June. The AI pioneer has also introduced a new Ads Manager beta that allows retailers to upload product feeds to automate ad creation.

OpenAI has insisted that ads will not influence or adjust the answers that its chatbot provides. But, it will be interesting to see how this new format may adjust user behaviour. 

The company will also offer the option for ‘personalised ads’. For those who don’t fear cookies and omnipresent algorithm stalking, this option will allow ChatGPT to serve ads contextualised by your chat history. 

My main questions at this stage:

1. How accurate will ad targeting and personalisation really be? Chat GPT asserts that ‘advertisers do not have access to your chats... or personal details’. 

2. How will users respond? AI adoption still fluctuates wildly between user demographics, and trust levels for search responses is similarly inconsistent. Will the introduction of ads be offputting to thus-far unconvinced searchers? 

Meanwhile, in traditional search: Google’s Core Update completes

Whilst all of this fast-pace change ensues in the AI sphere, Google’s latest Core Algorithm Update has also finished rolling out this week. The update took 12 days to implement and seems to have caused wider ripples than the relatively ineffectual equivalent in March. 

Now that the update is complete, fluctuations are likely to settle into the new normal. Suffice to say: when it comes to looking back on early June, next month’s reporting cycle is set to be an exciting one!

Overarching thoughts

Ultimately, the same best practices remain across both SEO and AI SEO / GEO. For many of us, GEO seems to be simply a new flavour of SEO rather than an entirely different service or approach. 

As such, many of these updates come as no surprise: Organic search has always competed with ads. All marketing channels have always been subject to CMA rulings. And reporting tools remain an integral part of our day-to-day work. 

But the pace at which these updates are rolling out seems to point to a level of competition within the AI search industry that hasn’t existed in the era of Google’s dominance. Perhaps all platforms are battling hard to avoid becoming this generation’s much-loved, but sadly retired, ‘Ask Jeeves’.

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