For decades, people have relied on Google's ten blue links to find everything from travel guides to jeans. However, a silent revolution is underway – AI chatbots are rapidly becoming a new way for consumers to find information, directly completing the search process for users and fundamentally altering how we interact with the internet.
Adobe's latest research is startling. By analyzing "over 1 trillion US retail website visits" and surveying "over 5,000 US respondents," Adobe reveals AI search as a significant traffic source for retailers. Data shows a 1300% surge in AI search-referred traffic during the 2024 holiday season compared to 2023, and a staggering 1950% increase on Cyber Monday. While these numbers are eye-popping, this growth is somewhat expected considering AI search was in its infancy last year.
Even more striking are the user engagement metrics. Users from AI searches spent 8% more time on websites, browsed 12% more pages, and had a 23% lower "bounce rate" (leaving after visiting only one link) compared to traditional searches (like standard Google or Bing searches). This suggests AI tools are guiding users to more relevant pages than traditional search, providing a superior search experience.
Image Source Note: Image generated by AI, licensed through Midjourney
The rollout of generative AI search tools hasn't been without its hiccups. Google's AI overview (formerly Search Generative Experience or SGE) has been around for nearly a year, but initial issues were rampant: it once suggested users add glue to pizza to make the cheese stick, eat a small piece of rock daily, and even falsely claimed former President Barack Obama was the first Muslim president.
Newly minted startup Perplexity, currently valued at $9 billion, provides AI search via chatbot (with built-in ads), but has also faced controversy. Last June, a Forbes editor accused the company of extensively plagiarizing their team's reporting through a new feature (capable of generating web pages on any topic). CEO Aravind Srinivas then stated the product "has rough edges" and would "continuously improve" with time and feedback. This defense wasn't universally accepted: Forbes threatened legal action, and News Corp has actively sued for copyright infringement.
Despite early issues, OpenAI also launched a search function within its flagship product ChatGPT last year. Perhaps learning from Google and Perplexity's mistakes, OpenAI declared its search function a prototype, aiming to reduce strange edge cases that could go viral. It also partnered with numerous media partners (including The Verge's parent company, Vox Media), emphasizing in press releases that publishers have control over how their work is presented in ChatGPT.
AI search appears to be an irreversible trend, with consumers shaping its development based on their needs. Adobe's survey of 5,000 consumers found that 39% use AI search for online shopping, 55% for research (which is also my primary use case), and 47% for finding purchase recommendations. Such data typically makes advertisers salivate. Interestingly, while Perplexity and Google incorporate ads alongside AI search results, OpenAI does not. According to TechCrunch, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman believes the company will only implement ads as a "last resort," as he finds the "ads plus AI combination particularly unsettling." CFO Sara Frey previously stated the company was considering ads (later clarified by a company spokesperson). Despite OpenAI's product being a money-burning machine, desperately needing ad revenue, this isn't the future consumers desire – and the lack of ads might be one reason they are drawn to AI search.
While still in its early stages, AI search has demonstrably captured consumer attention, who are experimenting with this novel way of finding information online. Many critics argue that traditional search has been broken for years, saturated with ads and SEO spam. AI search is emerging as a potential solution – provided it can avoid the same corrosive forces and truly deliver a clean and efficient search experience for users.
