In May of this year, Google began the gradual rollout of its integrated machine learning tool, Google AI Overviews. This isn’t the first time the company has dabbled in AI technologies, but does mark another important step in utilizing AI to enhance user experience and answer even the most specific queries.
That’s the hope, in theory, at least.
Despite Google’s optimistic pledges, AI is still a technology in its infancy and prone to hallucination and factual errors. Furthermore, there are fears that AI Overviews may actually be harmful to businesses in terms of exposure and clickthrough rates, especially smaller companies.
But what does Google’s latest technology mean for your business, and how can you guard against any negative outcomes? Let this article be your guide.
An Overview of Google’s AI Overviews
Google’s AI Overviews is the latest tool offered by the tech giant to help enhance the search experience by providing ready access to information, products, and pages. The rise of machine learning technology means that companies can tailor increasingly accurate, relevant answers to user queries.
AI Overviews provides users with an AI-generated response to their searches and aims to provide a quick response and resources to searches. It uses existing online content to provide answers in short paragraph form. There are a few common searches that this technology aims to satisfy:
- Location based and SEO information – A quick response to users looking for information based on certain keywords or their location.
- Information – A quick response to queries, providing detailed steps and resources.
- Business – Users that are looking for a certain type of business will have recommendations provided to them, partly based on location.
- Planning – AI Overview can create detailed plans for everything from events and holidays, to a week’s worth of meals.
AI Overviews uses Google’s Gemini Large Language Model (LLM) to better respond to searches. AI tools in general use predictive models to construct sentences and ideas, following each word or token with another that’s statistically likely. It can’t “think,” per se. Rather, it predicts based on outcomes from learned data sets.
Additionally, in an attempt to ensure current and accurate information, the tool also relies on Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG) technology to check its generations against existing content.
Users are probably already familiar with Google features which help them refine searches, like location-based answers, language choices, and even popular queries that may relate to their own searches. That said, AI Overviews aims to go a step further, augmenting its tailored information with the following:
- Links to products and services
- Paid sponsorships and ads
- Cited sources used by the AI
- Options for feedback to better refine results
However, there are some areas where AI Overviews won’t be active:
- Potentially divisive topics, like politics or religion.
- Any medical or health related information.
- News and current affairs.
- Searches for recipes.
- Any quick searches, as these already provide quick information, e.g. time, conversions, weather.
The technology is still effectively in the beta stage, having undergone extensive testing only two weeks before rollout. Google has started its release slowly, limiting access to users in the U.S. for now. By next year, though, the company hopes to have it rolled out to over a billion users worldwide.
The Potential of AI Overviews
In the grand scheme of things, Google’s latest technological tool is still brand-new, yet to be put through its paces or have its full potential realized. The technology launched with bold hopes and promise, which doesn’t always live up to the reality.
It’s hoped that AI Overview’s reliance on content to generate its responses will create exposure for various sites, and recommend many businesses. Citations, location-based links, and SEO processes would, in theory, give these pages more views, clickthrough rates, business, and ultimately remuneration, by being involved in the process.
The technology also provides opportunities for businesses to promote themselves through SEO and location-based optimization. It’s too early to say how many businesses will engage in this strategy, so only time will tell.
Google is promising that clickthrough rates and engagements are higher for sites that allow AI Overviews to use their information, but has yet to provide any substantial data to prove that’s the case.
The Dark Side of AI Overviews
Despite its limited release, AI Overviews has had anything but a smooth release. Many responses have been inaccurate and downright hazardous at times. Users have been told to add glue to their pizza for extra thickness and that there are no countries that begin with the letter “K.”
This is only the tip of the iceberg, and many sites and businesses have raised concerns about AI Overview’s potential for negatively impacting them.
Plagiarism
AI, by its very nature, relies on the intellectual property of others, and often obtains this without their knowledge or consent. Google has been accused multiple times, by companies like Reddit, of scraping data to bolster its machine learning tools. Those it takes from are seldom attributed or adequately compensated.
Though AI Overviews ostensibly cites its sources and links to relevant pages, there’s concern that such a tool will either steal the hard work of content creators, or misrepresent information through a quick summarization.
No Clickthrough
People in a hurry will most often settle for the site that gives them the information they need the fastest. AI Overview promises websites and businesses increased clickthrough rates through references and exposure, but the opposite is in fact true. Most users will be satisfied with the AI-generated answer, not bothering to follow through to the various websites listed. Convenience trumps quality.
Google’s new AI tool takes the hard work, research, and expertise of countless websites. They may cite them, but the lack of clickthrough has potentially devastating impacts on site engagement and revenue.
AI’s Many Flaws
AI’s training on limited data sets, and its fundamental construction as a statistically predictive tool, rather than actual thought, means that it’ll remain fundamentally unreliable for years to come. There have been many instances of AI tools “hallucinating” facts, such as Chat GPT fabricating legal cases for lawyer Steven Schwartz.
What’s more, AI Overview’s RAG features, designed to fact check any generated content against existing sources online can itself be unreliable by pulling from factually incorrect sources. A recent example includes listing Barack Hussein Obama as the first Muslim president of the United States.
Not only is this something categorically untrue, but based off an Oxford University Press-published book chapter titled “Barack Hussein Obama: America’s First Muslim President?” The veracity of online sources is something the tool still struggles with.
These flaws, both funny and frustrating, can also do much to undermine trust in tools like AI Overviews. Its recommendations and links by extension may also be placed into doubt. This, in turn, can lead to a negative impact on businesses and websites that are linked to or cited by Google.
The tool’s failures can extend to your business.
Unequal Exposure
As it expands in scope, AI Overviews will focus more and more on sites that design content specifically to appeal to its algorithm. SEO is increasingly crucial to ensuring relevance with search engines. AI tools favor content that’s current, backlinked, and optimized.
This requires time, money, and specialists to complete, something that not every business can afford to supply. Tools like AI Overviews make it more difficult for small to medium enterprises to gain the exposure they desperately need for business, unless they can dance to the right tune. While this may prove a good opportunity for small companies who know how to leverage SEO, the majority will be negatively impacted by this ongoing trend.
What Can Be Done?
With AI Overview here to stay for the foreseeable future, it’s best to prepare your business to deal with it.
Opt Out
Google makes it clear that websites and companies can choose not to participate in being featured by AI Overviews. If you don’t want your brand to feature in misleading material, or have your content misrepresented or unfairly compensated, then you can opt out at any time.
Unfortunately, everyone is signed up by default, so you’ll have to opt out manually via Google Search Central. What makes things worse, is that fully divorcing yourself from the Google Index will mean that your site or won’t show up in any more Google searches. It’s drastic, but definitely an option.
Meet the Challenge
Removing a site from the Google index will be a bridge too far for many. In that case, it can be helpful to better optimize your site for tools like AI Overviews.
Here are some things you can do:
- Provide SEO content with relevant keywords and topics for your business.
- AI Overviews relies on content that provides quick overviews on topics. Try to generate content that does so.
- Keep any content frequently updated every year. AI seldom uses content older than this.
- AI favors content with visuals and clear backlinking. Make sure your site has content with both.
- Be sure to answer potential user queries in your content. Most Google searches are people looking for a quick answer to a question.
An Uncertain Future
For all its touted benefits and conveniences, it’s clear that Google’s AI Overviews will bring as much upheaval and harm to businesses as it will any good. It’s best to be aware of the limitations of this technology, and the way it could harm your website’s engagement, before deciding on the best course of action.
