A.I. Get’s Eyes, Ears, and A Mouth

On Monday, Open A.I. announced that ChatGPT will begin leveraging voice and image.

That’s nuts.

It will now start processing language naturally as you speak it, as well as analyzing images and content. In addition, and more importantly, ChatGPT will no longer be stuck in 2021. It can now search the web to provide answers in real-time according to OpenAI. Both these enhancements are going to greatly increase the value ChatGPT provides to its users and is the next step in taking on Google as the experience users prefer when browsing the internet. Let’s breakdown the impact from least to greatest.

First is voice, which isn’t going to be a big value add for user interaction. Natural language processing via voice is done really well by Google Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa, and Siri. This is more of a catch up feature than anything else, but it will allow Microsoft to integrate its A.I. in similar capacities to it’s product lines. It’s nice to use your voice occasionally for queries, but we can already do that very well.

Second is the eyes and image recognition. Again this has been done via text to image by Adobe Firefly and Midjourney etc., but not in the application of search and how a user interreacts with the internet. Previously the focus was having generative A.I. support creation of unique images, but ChatGPT can now analyze an image to determine the contents and answer questions about it. For example you could have ChatGPT summarize a PowerPoint deck, ask it if this bug that just bit you is dangerous and how to treat the sting, or my parents could ask it where to plug in there HDMI cable to their specific TV. Image recognition is going to improve the usefulness of the tool because as I’ve said in previous posts, it’s going to make it more personal. Don’t give me a general answer on how to keep my house plants alive, give me recommendations for my specific succulent. Also please tell me what type of succulent it is. Also why can’t I keep it alive…

It’s really the coupling of these two pieces that is most impactful as this will expand ChatGPT’s learning network via Video. Now almost, 65% of the internet traffic is video. Our biggest most natural content is in the form of video. Any processing model that can digest that content is going to have a leg up on plain text offerings. This feels like ChatGPT going to college, and it’s going to get a lot smarter very quickly. Not to mention that eventually it’s going to take on a digital persona and generate a virtual assistant you can interact with to search, learn, or fall in love with… anyways.

So ChatGPT is going to be more natural and smarter, but the most immediate impact and threat to SEO is ChatGPT is going to be current. I know it didn’t seem like a big deal that the learning model was limited to prior to 2021, but two years in the digital landscape is HUGE. Most inquiries aren’t historical, they are in the moment. Sure a bunch of trendy business influencers like to post fun antidotes about how they leveraged A.I. to make their job easier to spend more time touting their own accomplishments and less time accomplishing anything. But ChatGPT couldn’t give you results (accurate or not) on what is happening now. IE. What’s the score of the Cowboys game? Who are they playing this week? is Zach Martin Hurt? Will Taylor Swift be at the game?

For ecommerce and digital marketing managers, this means A.I. can now respond to your site as it is today, and not what it was in 2021. Two years is a long time for ecommerce site. In general I would say this is about the half-life of any design and at four years you should be developing a new site if not sooner. Anytime I look at my clients sites in the Wayback machine, I always thing “What the hell were we doing?”. This change will make ChatGPT leagues better in terms of indexing and responding to queries today.

Second, and lest we forget A.I. will start analyzing not just the text and schema on your site, but also your creative and images. This will be new for ecommerce managers as even though the concepts strategies for search optimization already exist, you will need to apply these concepts to all creative content. This content is also now even more important. Where previously Google relied on meta tags and image names, A.I. doesn’t need HTML text and can actually see what is in your images and videos.

Now is the time to start optimizing to A.I. for your sites and products. A.I. is going to be the new way consumers prefer to interact with the internet in 2024. I’m not ready to say Microsoft will overtake Google in terms of internet query share, Google could still catch up, but as of today it’s looking to be a serious threat.