Roger Rosweide

Google’s challenge to ChatGPT stumbles with a costly mistake. Their AI-powered chatbot fails in a promotional video, causing investors to erase over $100 billion in value from parent company Alphabet.

But that’s not yesterday’s biggest news.

This is:

People are turning to Google for deeper insights and understanding.

Not “How many keys does a piano have?”

But: “Is the piano or guitar easier to learn?”

To aid in these questions, AI features will be added to Search to make understanding complex information and multiple points of view easier.

“AI can be helpful in these moments, synthesizing insights for questions where there’s no one right answer. Soon, you’ll see AI-powered features in Search that distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, so you can quickly understand the big picture and learn more from the web”

Google Blog

So what does this mean?

First of all: factual websites will become redundant.

Google will gather that information and synthesize it on the Search page.

Just look at my screenshot:

Before you panic, there’s a huge opportunity:

Perspectives, ideas, and personal experiences….That will be the new gold.

AI can synthesize information and summarize a common line of thought, but it can’t relate to a personal experience.

It doesn’t have one.

Google sees AI as the most important way it can deliver on its mission: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

It means this:

At the end of the day, after summarizing the general information you look for at the top of the Search page, it will direct you to people.

Why? Because we learn from people.

If you want to know what’s more difficult to learn, the piano or the guitar, you need a person.

You want to hear about personal experiences, connect with someone you relate to, and sympathize with someone’s opinion.

Here’s the opportunity:

That which distinguishes and makes humans so fascinating will drive traffic to websites.

The reason you hang out with your adventurous friend who’s always learning something new.

Or the geeky guy who’s really into instruments and plays multiple.

Those are the stories that Google will link to.

That’s the type of stuff they can’t synthesize.

Because opinions have always been important but will become even more so in assisting people in relating to and digesting information.

When factual information becomes commonplace, personal experiences (effectively communicated) become more valuable.

Unpopular opinion (maybe): websites will thrive.

Websites will become more important.

They will be destinations for learning about perspectives on complex information or personal experiences.

Everything else will be on the front page of Google, but your opinion is yours.

The takeaway:

Start a website.

Start sharing your ideas.

Make it personal.

Better yet, help other people start a website.

Allow me to plug WPCS.io: a platform to launch and develop a thousand websites as if it’s only one.

Making websites available to people has become more important than ever.

PS: I do admit the error is one hell of a snafu.