Latest news with #AIsearch
Hospitality Net
4 days ago
- Business
- Hospitality Net
Food for Thought: Is Traditional Search Dead?
A recent post on LinkedIn declared the end of the search engines as we know them. the list even declared 'R.I.P. Search.' This is in tune with an avalanche of recent headlines arguing that traditional search is dead due to the rise of AI Search via the generative AI platforms ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, etc. Some experts herald the end of Google's monopoly on search and claim that traditional search marketing is becoming obsolete. Let's not get carried away. The rumors about the inevitable end of the 'traditional' search engines like Google at the hands of AI Search are highly exaggerated. According to latest data by SEMrush, people interact with search engines 34 TIMES more often than with AI search. During the reported period of April 2024-March 2025, the global search engines received 1,863 billion visits (-0.5% YoY), while the global AI Search chatbots 55.2 billion +(81% YoY). In other words, AI Search was in the rise over the past year, but still received 34 times less visits than traditional search engines. There is an additional wrinkle to the story: the data for traditional search engines does not include the queries on Google, Bing, etc. that were answered by AI, which blurs the boundaries between traditional search and AI. For example, Google uses its Gemini AI to provide answers in its Answer Box in its SERPs. Today, nearly 60% of Google searches end up as zero-click queries i.e. people find enough information in the Gemini AI-powered Answer Box and do not need to click on any of the organic or sponsored links. Bing uses a combination of ChatGPT and its proprietary Prometheus AI and Copilot AI in its Answer Box to boosts its conversational search capabilities, provide a more interactive user experience and up-to-date and context-rich answers, especially for current events and trends. So, should hoteliers abandon their traditional search marketing initiatives? Definitely not! Search marketing on Google and all of its formats: Google Ads (GA), Google Hotel Ads (GHA), organic listings (SEO) consistently contributes to over 50% of hotel website bookings. In the same time, hoteliers should not ignore the rising AI Search. The most immediate priority is to optimize the property for AIO (Artificial Intelligence Optimization), the AI version of SEO. In the AI world, stuffing your website content with SEO keyword terms and aiming to rank for keywords no longer applies. In other words, your website is no longer the primary source of influence. The era of earning recognition has arrived. How do you achieve that? Invest in content marketing with the goal to be cited in places of relevance. SEO company VertoDigital's audits show that only 25% of AI answers are pulled from website content, in this case hotel website content. The rest comes from citations about the hotel in social media, online publications, YouTube, travel-related sites and blogs, customer reviews, etc.
Gizmodo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Gizmodo
Apple's Stock Price Falls After Exec Says It Is Considering Injecting Safari With AI
On Wednesday, Apple's senior vice president of services, Eddy Cue, said that the company is 'actively looking at' bringing AI search options to its Safari web browser. Cue also said he believes that AI search engines will eventually replace standard search engines like Google. Cue's comments came as he testified in the remedies phase of Google's antitrust trial in Washington. The Apple executive also shared that the number of Google searches made on Safari decreased for the first time ever this year. He attributed the change to the rise of AI search engines. 'That has never happened in 22 years,' he emphasized. (Safari was released in early 2003.) While Cue says that AI search technology isn't ready to be rolled out on Safari ('To date, they're just not good enough'), he did say that the company has already had conversations with OpenAI, Perplexity, and Anthropic. Last August, Apple announced a partnership with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to some of its products, but Cue says he wanted to 'make sure we have the capability to switch if we have to,' in case another company distinguishes itself as a leader in AI search. Share prices of both Alphabet and Apple fell—Alphabet's by around 8% and Apple's by around 2%—after Bloomberg reported on Cue's testimony. Executives from a range of tech companies—including Yahoo, Microsoft, and OpenAI—are expected to testify during the remedies phase of this trial, which kicked off last month. Apple's testimony is particularly relevant to Google's fate because the search company pays Apple around $20 billion a year to be the default search engine on Safari. Under this agreement with Google, Apple receives a portion of Google's ad revenue from searches on Safari. During his testimony on Wednesday, Cue said he's 'lost a lot of sleep' over the idea of losing the revenue share. Google is currently the defendant in two separate antitrust suits filed by the Department of Justice. Today's testimony was part of the trial that emerged from the Justice Department's 2020 lawsuit against Google. That suit alleges that Google illegally maintained a monopoly on search and search advertising markets. A central argument in the DOJ's case was that the exclusivity agreements Google struck with certain platform providers (like Apple) to become the default browser on their tools were illegally monopolistic. Last August, Judge Amit P. Mehta of the US District Court of the District of Washington, DC, ruled against Google in the trial. While Google has said it plans to appeal the verdict, that action will have to wait until the remedies phase of the trial is complete. Separately, a 2023 suit filed by the DOJ against Google argues that the search giant illegally monopolized the digital ad tech market. Last month, Google was found guilty of two of the three charges brought against it. Google also plans to appeal this ruling.
