OpenAI has been making waves across various industries for the last many years. However, since the announcement that the platform will no longer be constrained by the limitation of functioning on the data only prior to September 2021, the platform has opened up more use cases for search, enterprise solutions, advertising and brand marketing.
OpenAI can now leverage the current information available on the internet, including complete and direct links to the source. Thus expanding and powering its search capabilities even further. This announcement has had the adtech world pondering how this will propel feature enhancement, redefine search, and subsequently reverberate in the digital ad tech world.
With direct, vast and extensive access to search data, OpenAI is opening the doors for the use of new and innovative technological solutions for advertisers and brand marketers across the world.
The introduction of browsing capabilities in ChatGPT is a significant evolution in how users interact with search engines universally. Unlike static keyword-based searching on traditional search engines, ChatGPT offers a more interactive, conversational approach to searching, which can potentially change user behaviour over time. Marketers are buzzing about this because it opens up new frontiers for advertising, and also challenges the existing paradigms of search advertising.
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From the very beginning, agencies and brand marketers have been looking at how they can use generative AI to handle everything from ad copywriting to chatbots. AI has had a major influence on out-of-home advertising, as well, with brands like McDonald’s and Burger King famously using the program to write content for billboards in South America in 2023.
Unlocking new avenues for advertisers
ChatGPT’s new search feature will extend those capabilities even further. However, it could also create headaches — at least initially — for brands and advertisers that are unwilling to adapt.
If ChatGPT’s browsing capability becomes popular and scales quickly, search-focused performance advertisers will face a crunch. Campaigns built for traditional search engines may lose traction as users shift towards more interactive, conversational search experiences. It’s a wake-up call for advertisers to adapt or risk obsolescence.
With this update, a new layer of competition and adaptation for search-focused advertisers is being introduced to the market. ChatGPT’s natural language processing capabilities enable it to understand user queries in a more conversational context, making search engines more intuitive and user-friendly.
Malek believes it’s likely that users who find conversational searches more engaging could migrate from traditional search engines to generative AI programs like ChatGPT or Google’s Bard, which would have an impact on the traffic and impressions that search campaigns see.
Advertisers will have a key role to play in any transition that takes place.
Adapting strategies in the conversational search landscape
It will be best for the advertisers and brands to look at OpenAI’s announcement as an opportunity to innovate and diversify their strategies, first by understanding the conversational search landscape and possibly collaborating with platforms like ChatGPT to explore advertising opportunities and also by building strategies to create more interactive, conversational ad content that resonates with this new form of search.
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Advertisers should also be willing to experiment, learn and iterate quickly to stay ahead in this evolving landscape. Continuous learning and adapting to how users are interacting with conversational platforms will be key to successful advertising campaigns in this new realm.
As companies continue to explore the potential, the ethical and societal implications of generative AI programs will undoubtedly become a critical point of discussion. However, it’s already become clear that ChatGPT and generative AI are here to stay, and they’re rapidly changing the way consumers across the globe search for content and interact with brands.
Observing the trajectory, it’s plausible that ChatGPT could further refine its browsing capability to provide even more precise, personalised search experiences. We might also see the integration of advertising solutions within the conversational search framework, creating new channels for brands and advertisers.
As AI and machine learning continue to evolve, the seamlessness and intelligence of conversational interactions will likely enhance, blurring the lines between human and machine interactions. This continuous evolution will only further entrench conversational search as a significant player in the digital landscape, urging advertisers to continually adapt to remain relevant and effective.
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Image credit: Hatice Baran
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