There's clearly a new trend going on, regardless of the niche or your area of interest. Whether you're an artist, a doctor, a writer, a business owner, an affiliate marketer, or something completely unrelated, you must have bumped into AI technologies. Perhaps, you did so against your will: these developments are so common now that they get implemented into every single tool you're using, and it's hard to say if they indeed provide a seamless experience in all cases.
Google, however, used to be a successful pioneer. Inspired by the previous success, or more likely, spurred on by the recent achievements of OpenAI, the company introduced a new solution known as AI Overviews.
And that's where things took an unexpected turn and went south.
What Happened?
Here's what transpired. The Chief of Google's AI business, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, disclosed a vital piece of information, confirming that the company was planning to spend more than $100 billion to develop AI technologies. Develop it did: during the Google I/O conference, Google declared it would be bringing the newly concocted AI solution to everyone in the U.S.
AI Overviews did hog the limelight and make international headlines. Initially, this search feature was expected to save you clicks and provide summaries of the search results on the main page of the search query. For example, if you ask how to cut and de-seed pomegranate easily, the AI rolls out an instruction, putting 5-Minute Crafts to shame. In more ways than one.
AI Overviews became something 5-Minute Crafts had been back in 2016: a source of controversial, if not dangerous, instructions. The Internet blew up with articles, videos, tweets, and comments, rousting the company: after all, the hilarious output about astronauts seeing cats on the Moon or parrots taking the job of a prison inmate was eventually replaced by more concerning ones, for example, pieces of advice to eat one rock a day or glue cheese to your pizza.
Why It Happened?
If we are keeping it short, the problem lies with the approach Google has chosen in this particular case. The developers have failed to accumulate a decent knowledge base, so this AI model relies on what is considered popular: it simply does not know if the data it has processed is true, or not. On certain occasions, it's even possible to retrieve and reconstruct the original source of information: for example, if you follow The Onion, you will most likely remember its highly acclaimed satirical article about eating rocks. Practically, this is what Rusty Foster from Today in Tabs wittily nicknamed automated plagiarism.
However, a lack of a valid knowledge base is only part of the problem. MIT Technology Review mentions a complication that has not been thoroughly examined: the AI system — many AI systems in general, not necessarily this one — tends to generate misinformation from factually correct sources by missing the entire point of the texts it digests and interpreting them the way it sees fit.
What Is Google’s Response?
Unsurprisingly, Google picked the safest option of all: after a year of testing and a messy rollout in May, 2024, the company blamed it on the users, claiming that the uncommon queries couldn't be properly processed. This is fair to some extent: it's hard to imagine that a team of developers was indeed forcing the search engine to reply if there is a list of the most common jobs a parrot could do. On the other hand, there were common ones that were still mishandled: information on Barack Obama's background, cheese on pizza, and smoking risks was never deemed classified or outlandish to begin with.
Of course, the uproar on the Internet and the surge of memes bludgeoned the company to remove AI Overviews on certain queries to refine the technology. Apparently, Google puts a lot of ambition into this exact model, so the company will rectify its mistakes manually, if necessary: by addressing the most contentious queries.
Will AI Overviews Affect Your Ad Campaign?
The digital marketing community is justly perturbed: AI Overviews may supposedly significantly alter the dynamics of traditional SEO and organic clicks, providing new challenges for everyone involved. However, specialists are more inclined to think that the shift in the search strategy does not foretell a new era — it is more likely a new chapter that opens new horizons and emphasizes the importance of certain aspects, highlighting, for example, the subject of concise and informative content.
With that in mind, many affiliates have already started their own evaluations, tentatively exploring the feature and testing the approaches that might potentially work. For the time being, however, the overall impact of AI Overviews remains unclear. AI technologies and systems have already fired up in the affiliate marketing community, but we're still in the early stages. At this point, it is impossible to deduce whether we should be worried as Google has not yet provided any clear metrics or public data for a thorough analysis that would help us shape an opinion. The only speculation that might still be true is that high-quality, informative content from credible and reliable sources will likely be most favored.
Nevertheless, we can take a peek at what SEO might look like in the foreseeable future: as AI Overviews supply both the necessary data and the sources of said data, you can see site suggestions below the output — that said, you can get acquainted with the subject of eating rocks or gluing cheese to your pizza without surfing the Internet further. This asserts new rules for the SEO game: specialists will put all their effort into making their articles rank and get mentioned as one of the sources. Potentially, Google could recommend brands or products within AI Overviews, which may demonstrate advertising evolution and SEO strategy advancement.
In a nutshell, the impact AI Overviews exert on digital marketing is likely to be complex: first, you should keep in mind the challenges caused by a galvanic reduction of clicks, and second, brands are obliged to contrive new tactics to gain visibility and influence. AI Overviews, just like any new technology, impel us to adjust our approaches and techniques and leverage opportunities to address new challenges introduced by eminent developers, marketing moguls, and Internet giants.
What About Workarounds?
The botched version of what was purported to be a revolution in the world of search engines and marketing turned out to be a dangerously hilarious joke, surmounting the dubious achievements of 5-Minute Crafts hacks. People who love a good challenge may find themselves driven by the new feature, but if you are not one of them and are vexed by the AI Overviews results, here are two possible workarounds.
- Web tab. You can't disable the feature, but you can outsmart Google and do so with the help of its own tools. When you search a query, look at the strip above the results, but below the search bar: All, Images, Videos, News, Shopping, Books, and finally, the tab you need: Web. Smash that filter and enjoy the result: now snippets and other panels are removed from your results.
Web tab in mobile and desktop versions - Extension. As the meme goes, its arrival was foretold in ancient murals: the moment something annoying happens on the Internet, unknown developers immediately roll out a solution. Hide Google AI Overviews with an extension and forget about eating rocks and working parrots for good.
Wrapping Up
AI Overviews is a new feature that was deemed to elevate search and provide a seamless experience and trustworthy replies based on authoritative content that contained a certain degree of gravitas. The results were deflating, to say the least, but they offered a clearer view on the multifaceted problem of AI systems and pointed out the directions for further development of digital marketing.
