The Limiting Aspects in Using AI for Search and Research in Content Creation:

Online search has always been about surfing the internet, browsing websites, skimming for close reading articles, and analyzing content to evaluate the sense and sensibility of the information for practical application in business projects. And, of course, as the contextual setting for brand advertising campaigns to boost revenue generation for publishers and advertisers. 

The more website visitors and users scrolled down and across the site, the more time they could spend on the site to get attracted to brand products and services in ad campaigns. The more meaningful the surfing and browsing were, the more they could get connected to the brand content accessed to answer their pain points and challenges in that particular industry and niche. That benefited all parties concerned.

What Now for Brand Building?

 

Relax and focus on your brand. You need to keep the brand-building mindset for sustainability and longevity in the market. Keep the dream of making entrepreneurs, publishers, and advertisers support each other for revenue generation from digital marketing. In digital marketing, branding, and marketing revolves around content creation and writing. The more creative and holistic you do it based on the purpose and value of the business venture, the better for solid brand building.

So, don't short-change it with AI mass-produced content and scrapped overview summaries by Generative AI crawlers from websites that should be visited and explored by anyone who knows what they might be looking for online. So, what is going on with search is what most SEO professionals, marketers, and creators are asking and puzzled about in digital marketing.

The GSE Optimization

The disruption of the excitement in surfing and browsing the internet are chatbots, crawlers, and Generative Search Experience Optimization. So, focus on your brand optimization through content creation that boosts brand expertise and authority for appearing on Google AI overviews without compromising the purpose and value of your business venture. 

Generative Search Experience Optimization can never operate or happen in a vacuum but in content created by publishers, copywriters, and marketers who understand the context and challenges in the industry and niche market their business ventures serve.

Let's explore the limiting factors and see whether it makes sense. Remember, we are not claiming to know it all but to share ideas for inspiration and empowerment in brand building for wealth creation online and offline. Here are the human skills compromised by AI-powered search engines that make the internet more appealing to users and consumers of information and data online.

Surfing

You can imagine that adrenaline excitement of a real surfer in the wild ocean waves. That is one skill that does not just come automatically with internet users. It comes with an appreciation of the internet and its objective of making information easy to access, enhanced by its launching of Google as a search engine back in 1998 as a web-based search engine. And its mission of “organizing the world’s information to make it universally accessible and useful.” Its product vision was “To provide access to the world’s information in one click.”

That was a groundbreaking and profound breakthrough back then. Making surfing the internet more meaningful by exploring websites as sources of information from publishers and advertisers online. That made surfing more appealing and absorbing for exploring various websites and web pages.

Therefore, the present GSE optimization has compromised the casual exploration of websites more interesting to the detrimental effect of making interesting ones buried and non-existent online, except the bigger ones usually highlighted in the scrappy AI overviews. That steals the essence of the surfing skills on the internet and that excitement that comes with the casual exploration of the internet from surfing.

Browsing

Any internet search starts with a browser. And that makes it a skill that the GSE optimization seems to have compromised. It is a skill that demands the ability to open a browser of your choice, enter your search query or phrase and website address into the search bar, or search for specific information using a search engine, and the browser retrieves the content or information for display on your computer screen. That makes it more engaging for internet users and consumers.

Also, the investigative mindset of using links in search and research seems compromised by Google AI overviews. Do browsers have a uniform format for displaying information on the screen? I haven’t established this fact. But with a few encounters with Microsoft Edge, you know what it does for you to use it as a browser. I have always felt their mode of displaying information is slightly different. So, why now should we have a uniform display of information? That compromises the feel and the browsing experience on browsers on web pages or websites.

Close Reading

Close reading is an intense exercise that seems to have been compromised by AI models, especially in the research sector. Of course, AI might help with a faster retrieval and compilation of facts and figures. But what about close reading that opens the mind for critical analysis in academic research works? The more one reads closely, the more critically they think about what they are reading and its shortcomings and its strength in support of the subject under research.

The Close reading of information already summarized and identified for you does not cut deep when the reading is for academic and professional development and as a display of your intellectual capabilities, whether it is academic research or business research. You need to go deeper with your digging into relevant articles by surfing, browsing, and then intensive reading content that you see fit and refreshing to your views.

That makes you more analytical and critically alert with what you are reading than having everything dished out and given on a silver platter. It doesn’t cut it in a world that needs creativity and innovation with a human approach for practical application of information for the benefit of all concerned.

Analysis

Analyzing the validity and relevance of information on the internet is one skill that is essential in developing the mind of humankind. AI models can hardly do that without the human understanding of what is valid and reliable. Let alone the ability to analyze a topical issue and debate like, Does AI replace you at the workplace? Whether you are publishing and consuming internet content, analysis of what to produce or consume is what makes it a challenge to use AI models.

The validity and relevance of contents involve critical analysis of context that leads to a deep understanding of the industry and niche it serves for the benefit of the user and consumer. That means breaking into different elements for insights and discerning the purpose and value of the content. And whether it aligns with the intended needs on the internet, especially in marketing. That would mean analyzing whether it is of benefit and value to the user’s pain points in your industry and niche.

And for close reading purposes, it means you look deeper into the ideas and whether there are any biases or hidden agendas which AI can’t do right now. There have been reports of AI missing some of those biases in its summaries, especially ChatGPT when it first launched, and there were biases observed in some prompted feedback. So, using AI compromises the analysis exercise that is so important for intellectual understanding of information and data on the internet.  

Evaluation

Evaluation comes from everything you have to be able to do to access information on the internet, as initially envisioned by Google. And, now, compromised with AI generative that cut the whole process short in the name of making it fast and precise. That way, spoon-feeding users with prompts and summaries with limited surfing, browsing, close reading, and analysis of the internet content.

Once you access what AI models see and retrieve as correct and relevant to your search and research query, it defeats the whole purpose of applying some critical thinking to evaluate the validity and reliability of the information and data already retrieved for you from your prompts.

It is not as you would access raw data and information from websites and web pages. With AI overviews, you get everything on the silver platter, no matter how shallow or distorted it might be. AI models do not think or analyze with the human mind as they are said to be able to do.

Maybe in the future, as most people have observed. Of course, AI is here to stay, but using it wisely without limiting human capabilities and interfering with the intellectual development of the human mind is essential, especially for schoolchildren. With constant use, it compromises humanity in the practical exploration of the internet from its initial mission of accessing information with a critical mind for practical application in business research projects.

Disclaimer: 

We do not claim to be experts in what is going on with Generative AI search. The views here are from our observations and experience in content creation and writing. Our passion and drive in brand building make us concerned about such matters in digital marketing. Feel free to comment and air your sentiments in the comments box below.