According to analyst firm Gartner, generative AI will pose a serious threat to search engines in the next two years alone. It said that search engine searches will fall by a quarter by 2026 thanks to the adoption of AI chatbots and other virtual **.
According to Gartner, as AI shifts from traditional search engines to AI, businesses will have to adjust their marketing channel strategies. Alan Antin, corporate vice president analyst at Gartner, said:
Organic and paid search are important channels for tech marketers to achieve their awareness and demand generation goals. Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) solutions are emerging as alternative answer engines, replacing queries that users may have previously performed in traditional search engines. As GenAI becomes more and more embedded in every aspect of the business, this will force businesses to rethink their marketing channel strategies. "
The analytics firm also said that search engine algorithms will favor high-quality content to help offset the growing amount of AI-generated content. In addition, watermarks are expected to become even more important as a means of highlighting the value of the content.
While Google may not like this**, it's worth noting that Google and many other search engine providers are major providers of AI-generated services; Google has Gemini and Microsoft has Copilot.
So, while the usage of traditional search engines may decline due to AI, it will still be companies like Google that will get the traffic, but it may mean that there needs to be some way to replace the sponsored links that Google relies on for revenue
Gartner doesn't mention this in **, but the AI revolution also means that smaller companies could become serious competitors to Google in search. Most people know Microsoft's Copilot, which is essentially ChatGPT with web access, but there's also a startup, Perplexity, which attracted funding from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Nvidia.