AI Mode and the future of search: What it means for cultural organisations

Using the commonly referenced Gartner Hype Cycle, it could be argued that, when it comes to AI, we are in the ‘peak of inflated expectations’ phase.

This understandably results in some people being cynical about the hype, wondering about how truly useful AI is, how much it will change behaviours, and maybe thinking there is more fuss than is warranted.

However, the difference between AI and many other technologies is that AI is known as a General Purpose Technology – a term for technologies that “have the potential to drastically alter societies through their impact on pre-existing economic and social structures”.

Examples of other General Purpose Technologies include electricity and the internet. These sorts of technologies change things in ways that can be hard to envisage when they first emerge.

Launch of Google’s AI Mode

When the internet was invented, finding useful or entertaining websites relied on directories like Yahoo, or direct links from other websites. But then search engines were developed and this changed – forever – how information was surfaced to users.

Then Google combined AI into search results with AI Overview, meaning that, for some searches, there was no longer the need to leave the search results page to get the answer the user wanted.

Now Google has launched a new experiment in the US called AI Mode, which provides much more detailed and nuanced responses, embedding AI into search results ever more deeply, with the potential to result in significant changes in how people find and consume information online.

Industries whose business model relies on traffic, such as news publishers, are rightly concerned about tools like AI Mode. But the implications for cultural organisations are just as serious, even if they may be slower to materialise.

May result in less website traffic

You can think of AI Mode as a step on from AI Overview, with Google trying to understand the full context of your search query, including aspects like what might be implicit in the query and what you’ve searched for before.

So, if someone searches for ‘places to visit in Manchester with children this weekend’, SEO was concerned with optimising content on a website for the relevant keywords but with AI Mode, Google will take that query and break it down into a series of related queries. For example, it will assume the place to visit must be entertaining, perhaps be cheap or free to visit and have easy access to child-friendly food. It may also take account of things it knows about you from your search history and location.

Tools like AI Mode may result in less traffic to your site – particularly in relation to content designed to educate or entertain. Perhaps you’re a gallery with a specialism in a particular artist, or you aim to engage people with your artistic programme through written, visual or film content.

For some time now organic search has been one of the top referrers to arts and culture websites. But for searches that previously would have been a key target for SEO optimisation, like: ‘What was Barbara Hepworth’s influence on modern sculpture?’ or ‘How did the Black Arts Movement influence British theatre?’ and would have served you a list of links to keyword relevant websites, using AI Overview and AI Mode means that potentially users won’t ever need to visit your website to get what they are looking for.

Genie is out of the bottle

So, what does this mean for how you approach content for your own site? Google’s advice is that you don’t need to change anything immediately and that SEO best practices still apply.

However, it’s probably inevitable that, longer term, tools like AI Mode will change how visible your content and website are and so it is definitely worth familiarising yourself with how these tools work.

There are a couple of excellent articles listed below* which provide practical advice about how you might want to create, organise and present your content to take into account AI mode. For example, by thinking in paragraphs rather than pages and by aiming to respond to not only one query, but related angles users might be exploring.

As a moment in time, this feels similar to 2008 when new social media tools started to appear and change how organisations reached and engaged audiences. The AI genie certainly won’t be back in the bottle anytime soon so, while there is no need to panic, it is worthwhile considering the practical implications of these structural changes to some of our most important tech platforms.

*A clear guide to AI Mode

*Why you should create semantically rich content