AI impact on SEO, Taylor Swift and Ideas
The latest most transformational stories you need to know.
Dear reader,
Welcome back to BN Edition: concise analysis on the stories that offer us hints at our unfolding future. Fresh from the desks of the Brilliant Noise team.
Each edition takes a handful of stories from recent weeks and asks three things:
What? The story in a few sentences.
So what? Why do I need to know?
What next? What do I need to do, and what do I need to watch out for?
This week, find out more about:
AI impact on SEO
AI impact on Taylor Swift and the US election
AI impact on ideas
Let’s get into it.
Is AI killing search?: Gartner predicts search traffic to brands will halve by 2028
What?
In the next four years, brands’ organic search traffic will decrease by 50% or more as consumers embrace GenAI-powered search according to Gartner, a tech research and consulting firm.
Source: Gartner 2024 marketing predictions
So what?
AI will disrupt search harder and faster than many think. It’s already started to happen – brands experienced a 9.5% decline in organic site traffic in 2023 partly because of consumers starting to prefer generative search functions, and changing their behaviour to suit.
What next?
Start reimagining a future search strategy: As AI-driven Search Generative Experience (SGE) takes prominence in SERPs, reducing organic traffic, it'll be crucial to remagine how we approach search and where to put effort for the rest of digital marketing. For example, increasing a focus on conversion-optimised keywords and gated content could help maintain lead generation. So could repositioning traditional channels like email marketing to mitigate the impact on revenue.
As Gartner Analyst Brad Jashinsky said:
“Search is at an inflection point. Marketing leaders must prepare for the disruption that GenAI-powered search features will bring.”
Take inspiration from brands and creators who aren’t search-driven: There are loads of incredible examples of brands and content creators who don’t rely on search as a way to be found or seen. Take foodie content creator Caroline Chambers, who’s managed to monetise Instagram and gated content so well that every time she publishes a single recipe it makes her over $15k.
Diversify acquisition and lead-gen channels: Starting to explore and test alternative customer acquisition channels is a smart move. For example, email marketing, advertorial content and mobile marketing like WhatsApp groups. Anything that not only acquires new customers but also retains them.
Taylor deepfakes increase fears over the US election
What?
Over the past month, sexually explicit deepfakes of Taylor Swift generated by AI went viral on X, adding to existing fears about the role deepfakes could play in the upcoming US election.
Source: The Conversation
So what?
As the barriers to creating deepfakes becomes lower thanks to AI, fears are increasing for how they will be weaponised, and tech companies have varying approaches for tackling it:
X
As a result of X being flooded with Taylor deepfakes, the platform’s initial response was just to block all searches for the search term ‘Taylor Swift’, which reveals they don’t have any real moderation measure in place. Not surprising since Elon Musk fired the people responsible for moderation when he took over.
Microsoft
If there’s one thing Swifties (Taylor fans) know how to do, it is LOBBY. After being lobbied by Swifties, a group of US senators quickly introduced a bill to Congress that criminalises the spread of nonconsensual, sexualised images generated by artificial intelligence. And because the deepfakes were identified as being produced using Microsoft Designer, the company have reportedly closed the technical loophole that allowed for the creation of the images.
OpenAI
OpenAI published a blog post outlining its policy for global elections. In the post, they emphasise the importance of ensuring their technology, like ChatGPT and image generator DALL·E, is not misused in ways that could undermine democratic processes.
What next?
There’s one main actionable takeaway for this story. And that is:
Create AI policies and principles. Sooner rather than later.
This story reminds us that there are often too few people with too much power and not enough responsibility.
Safety budgets have been cut from social platforms like X and Meta which indicates they’re taking a hands-off approach.
Follow OpenAI's example in prioritising ethical use of generative AI technology. Develop and enforce a clear policy on the responsible use of AI within your orgainsation. This isn’t training investment, it’s a strategic necessity.
Yes, having a policy in place will ensure AI tools are not used to create misleading or harmful content and avoid potential legal pitfalls.
We offer an acceleration programme called AI-B-C™ that builds generative AI capability quickly. In a week, we can:
Help you create a policy and principles for working with AI.
Develop a test plan for experiments to run for increasing productivity, creativity and cultivating a safe environment full of possibility.
Get in touch at hello@brilliantnoise.com to request a half hour chat about how we can help.
'Chain of thought’ prompts scientifically proven to be the best for idea generation
What?
New research from leading business school professor Ethan Mollick explores and tests the best prompt strategies to find out how to get the best, most diverse ideas using Chat GPT-4.
Source: Prompting Diverse Ideas: Increasing AI Idea Variance
So what?
The study tested various prompting methods and found that ‘Chain of Thought’ prompting significantly increases the diversity of AI-generated ideas, closely matching the diversity achieved by human groups.
A ‘Chain of Thought’ prompt breaks down a task into simple steps. Here’s an example Ethan used in his research, specifically around product design:
Prompt:
Generate new product ideas with the following requirements:
The product will target college students in the United States. It should be a physical good, not a service or software.
I'd like a product that could be sold at a retail price of less than about USD 50.
The ideas are just ideas. The product need not yet exist, nor may it necessarily be
clearly feasible.
Follow these steps. Do each step, even if you think you do not need to.
First generate a list of 100 ideas (short title only)
Second, go through the list and determine whether the ideas are different and bold,
modify the ideas as needed to make them bolder and more different. No two ideas
should be the same. This is important!
Next, give the ideas a name and combine it with a product description. The name and
idea are separated by a colon and followed by a description. The idea should be
expressed as a paragraph of 40-80 words. Do this step by step!
For marketing and business leaders, this research highlights the untapped potential of AI in creative idea generation and offers a roadmap for using generative AI more effectively in brainstorming and product development processes.
The finding that different prompting techniques can yield diverse ideas is crucial in an environment where innovation diverse thinking are key differentiators.
What next?
Experiment with ‘Chain of Thought’ Prompting: Integrate this way of prompting in your AI-driven ideation processes; see how it compares to the results you get with your usual prompts (if you’re using any). Test this method in your brainstorming sessions to generate more creative and diverse ideas.
Invest in prompt engineering skills: Train teams in different prompting techniques (use Ethan’s paper for the best ones to try). Get them to experiment and record the results.
Explore prompting strategies: Next time you have a brainstorming session, use a generative AI platform like Chat GPT 4 + different prompting strategies. This approach means you get the benefit of the strengths of various prompting methods to get a richer pool of ideas.
That’s all for this week. Thank you for reading.
The Brilliant Noise team