Dive Brief:
- Consumers often don’t rely on AI-powered search and summaries for product research, with 53% saying they don’t trust the results, according to a survey published by Gartner Wednesday.
- Another 2 in 5 consumers say generative AI overviews make the search process more frustrating than traditional search, the survey found. And 3 in 5 want the option to turn off AI summaries, according to Gartner.
- Brands should consistently publish in-depth, accurate and well-researched content to help consumers research products, and “strengthen their reputation as trusted sources,” Noam Dorros, director analyst in the Gartner Marketing practice, said in a news release.
Dive Insight:
Generative AI is making the product search experience more conversational, and consumers are starting to use it for recommendations.
But consumers say AI summaries are most useful for initial product exploration, and “the perceived usefulness of these summaries declines when evaluating value options, and they drop further when finalizing a purchase,” according to Gartner.
As a result, consumers are not ready to jettison traditional search, with 62% saying they use it to explore different products and services with no brand in mind, the survey found. When asked the same question about AI summaries and AI-based chatbots, just 37% and 30% of consumers, respectively, said they use them.
“Undercutting the role of SEO is shortsighted. Traditional search methods still hold a dominant position for consumers seeking to truly explore and consider their options,” according to Gartner.
The large language models that power third-party AI tools, such as Google AI Overviews, are similar to the web crawler bots behind traditional search engines, Brett Leary, generative AI transformation and global retail lead at Accenture, told CX Dive in July. They visit brand sites to gather information for training AI models, which can affect the results consumers see.
So, as more and more consumers use AI search and summaries for product research, CX leaders should consider creating and optimizing content for those results, Dorros said.
“Brands should pursue a multichannel discoverability strategy and maximize visibility by optimizing for both AI-powered overviews and traditional SEO, ensuring their content is structured, authoritative, and relevant at every stage of the search journey,” Dorros said.
Businesses can increase their chances of being cited by delivering content with clear authorship, trustworthy references and domain expertise, according to Gartner.
Gartner also recommends that brands “optimize for zero-click” because many users will find answers without visiting a company’s website. Prioritizing formats like FAQs, lists and concise definitions can help brands boost visibility by making that information easy to extract by both search and answer engines, such as ChatGPT, according to Gartner.
