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In early December 2022, the general public discovered ChatGPT. An idea has spread: can it replace Google as a search engine?

In early December 2022, the general public discovered ChatGPT, a streamlined interface for querying OpenAI. The following weeks were a whirlwind of amusing examples, clever professional applications but also hasty sentences without nuance or controversy. One such announcement is the replacement of Google with ChatGPT.

Everyone sees noon on their doorstep for their personal and professional use, but as experience teaches us, when we announce a radical change in daily use by the general public, we are more often in the grip of frenzy than analysis .

Can ChatGPT provide the functions of a search engine like Google, and thus replace it in the daily use of the general public? Should we expect to integrate ChatGPT into our media strategy to be able to target our audience?

Let’s go back to what a search engine is

It is above all an everyday tool for most of the general public. The use of the Internet has been mature for over 15 years. The structuring novelties have appeared mainly on the side of social networks, bringing truly new uses. A search engine responds to the same use as its origin – to provide results to a request from an Internet user.

For the occasion, we can quote ChatGPT’s clear and precise answer, with a few paraphrases: A search engine is software that searches the Internet for web pages, documents and other online content, responding to search queries entered by users . If we summarize it in three main phases:

• Crawling and Indexing: Crawls the web and indexes the content of pages, allowing you to find them quickly when searched.
• Ranking algorithm: The search engine uses an algorithm to determine the order in which search results are displayed. This algorithm takes into account several factors, such as relevance, quality and popularity of web pages.
• Search results: as a list of links to web pages, as well as short excerpts from those pages.

If we compare the characteristics of a ChatGPT engine

To begin with, its index was built from many and varied sources (articles, novels, film scripts, online conversations, and web pages). It is blamed for stopping in 2021 and has required significant human validation work by content moderators. Google’s mission is to index the web, trying to be as up-to-date as possible to process 15% of new queries every day.

It’s unclear on what criteria ChatGPT ranks its results when asked for a list (“What are the best music streaming services?”). The relevance of the results is therefore obscure to the internet user, and the rankings impossible for a brand to work with, as it would in search engine SEO.

So, the most blocking point is the interface. A search engine is at the service of its users. Its ergonomics are the result of decades of research and continuous adjustments. ChatGPT offers an interface equivalent to a chatbot: the tool is above all a demonstration of a language processing technology, capable of understanding complex and precise requests and responding in a conversational way.

Finally, the results themselves are a problem: the tool generates its own response. He does not cite his sources, as errors, conveys inaccuracies. It’s a unique point of view. Google risks becoming a response engine, but under the control of its ranking algorithm. The Google 0 Positions are extracted from the web page judged to be most relevant, and the Internet user therefore has the possibility to choose between the various web pages of the natural results.

Is the Internet user ready to swap Google for ChatGPT?

Competition can only take place on a part of the service provided by a search engine. Only informational requests are routed correctly by ChatGPT, transactional requests are by nature irrelevant. We are therefore on a very small percentage of requests compared to the current use of Google.

Despite the perceived quality of the ChatGPT response, the public is used to consulting web pages to find information. Familiar environments with refined UX.

There has been a plethora of alternative search engines over the past 10 years, each with its own specificities (confidentiality, universal search, demagoguery, metasearch engines, etc.), but none has stood up to the scrutiny of the general public. Aside from Bing, the default engine on many workstations, no engine exceeds 1% market share. Despite the pompous ambitions to break the monopoly of the web giants by reinventing the search engine model, it is Internet users who decide whether the legitimacy of a dominant actor should be questioned through their uses.

Synergies rather than substitution?

We’ve seen projections of what “the future of Google” could be, with a ChatGPT integration. Indeed, adding a Chrome extension allows you to access the tool within its search results to complete them. More officially, Bing has announced plans to integrate ChatGPT into its engine to provide more conversational responses to Internet users. Beyond the announcement effect to remind the good memory of the market, Microsoft is one of the main investors of OpenAI for the amount of 1 billion dollars. Advances in GPT-3, 3.5 and soon 4 technologies are partly reserved for him and are gradually being integrated into his product variety. A ChatGPT-powered Bing is therefore credible.

For professional uses, OpenAI technology is not new. Its advancements and interface using ever-improving AI algorithms (GPT-2, GPT-3, Vinci) are known, exploited, and enriched by industries such as web writing and development, with varying success.

But for the general public and their search engine habits, the change isn’t for now. ChatGPT remains a tool, limited in bandwidth and likely to pay off in the long run. Announcing a revolution is part of the game for the CEO of OpenAI, proud of having reached one million users in 5 days, but it is a real lack of discernment on the part of the media.

Not all revolutions are necessarily progress, destroying the existing patiently built by an amusing novelty of the time would not benefit the Internet user. As with cryptocurrencies, web3 and its variants, anyone who invokes an alternative to any dominant model has something to gain. We prefer evolution to revolution, and we adapt research strategies to the former rather than coveting the latter.

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