Companies are now writing ad copy for bots, not people, and those bots are telling consumers what products to buy.
Google’s AI Overviews and OpenAI’s ChatGPT are starting to portray the same brands differently: Google is 44% more likely to skew negative about a given brand than ChatGPT, serving up criticism around lawsuits, product recalls, and news, according to a report by SEO platform BrightEdge. When ChatGPT goes negative, it does so around product reviews and costs.
With fewer humans in the process and AI that can sum up an entire brand’s history into one recommendation, some companies have taken to generating a slew of positive content in an attempt to rank better in AI results. That may help advertisers, but it floods the internet with a kind of product slop that could also dissuade consumers. The rules of advertising are changing, with SEO becoming a thing of the past. It’s likely the new standards will remain in flux as AI gets better and shoppers change their habits.