AI has emerged as one of the most transformative and disruptive forces in marketing as an industry in a long time, probably the most impactful since the mass adoption of the internet.
It will continue to evolve and change search as a practice for years to come.
While brands are working on AI adoption at an organizational level, the benefits and applications to most departments within the business are clear to the C-level.
When it comes to SEO, the opportunities and threats are less clear.
As an industry, we’re still deliberating how we classify ChatGPT (and other large language model tools). Are they search engines or discovery engines?
If we don’t have clear definitions of what is happening in the industry, we can’t expect our C-level stakeholders to understand – and this can breed uncertainty.
There are enough headlines surrounding AI from various mainstream publications that the perception of, and application capabilities of AI can vary greatly depending on your field of view.
To best explain and communicate how worried – or excited – your C-suite stakeholders need to be with the impact of AI on your SEO program, you need to be able to make it relatable.
This often comes down to the potential impact on website traffic (all channels), and the measurable impact on conversions (and the ROI/CPA stemming from specific channels). But also includes how it affects your audience.
AI Adoption In Your Audience
Before, we look at how to assess your SEO opportunities and threats with AI. A key part of this is understanding how your target markets perceive AI, their planning on adopting AI in their daily lives, and what opportunities AI has to enter their lives seamlessly.
Depending on your target markets, you’ll find active AI adoption rates differ.
Adopting any new technology relies on its ability to provide value by either enhancing user experience or solving a disutility. To do this, it has to achieve ARC:
Accessibility.
Reliability.
Cost.
Only by achieving these three things while providing value can a new technology gain mass market adoption.
Different demographics are adopting AI at different rates.
Looking at consumer surveys and reports, we see Gen Z and Gen Alpha embracing AI and actively utilizing platforms other than Google as the first port of call to discover information and content.
This is supported by a recent data release by Ofcom (Online Nation 2024 Report), which identified that those aged 18-24 are the highest adopters of AI technologies.
It is reported that 1 in 4 (27%) uses ChatGPT at least monthly, with 1 in 3 of this age segment using it.
Another notable data point from this report is that men are more likely to adopt AI, with 50% reporting using AI tools, compared to only 33% of women.
Adoption rates don’t tell the full story.
Threads reached 100 million users in less than a week, but quality issues have seen demand and daily active users (DAU) drop substantially.
A key part factor in this has been Threads’ algorithm capabilities to return satisfying and relevant content to users, and this same challenge is facing LLM tools such as ChatGPT.
The Ofcom Online Nation 2024 Report found that only 1 in 5 (18%) of adults found the information on ChatGPT to be reliable, but this rose to 33% among young adults.
Passive AI Adoption
ChatGPT and the other LLM tools fall under the banner of active AI adoption. Using these tools is a conscious adoption of AI, as you don’t accidentally log in to Claude or Perplexity.
In my opinion, the greater “softening” of the mass market and normalization of LLM tools and AI in the mainstream will come from the passive AI touchpoints that our target audiences are subjected to.
These include things like: