NerdBrand Podcast
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NerdBrand Podcast
AI Audio Overviews: Google's Next Search Frontier
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Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of the NerdBrand Podcast. And you're wondering like, hey, where's Michaela and where's Mitch? Well, you know I told them to go back into the hole where they came from and do more stuff, because we need things done. Also, they're. You know it's very rainy out and Mitch is a papaw. So, anyways, let's talk about audio overviews in Google. Whee, so, anyways, let's talk about audio overviews in Google.
Speaker 1:Wee, hey everybody, welcome to the NerdBrand Podcast, going to talk about audio overviews in Google. And you're like, wait a minute, what the heck is this? So, in case you weren't aware, search engine generative AI has not really gone anywhere. It's still progressing. Google's going to make some changes, still makes changes. If you're seeing drops in your traffic, it might be because of those changes. So we have a lot of things where Google has said you know, we're committing to some AI stuff and you're going to take it, and whether you like it or not. So, at the end of the day, we all need to start adapting our content, how we approach and what we think about with regards to search engine optimization, because, yeah, yeah, it's going to get rough out there, waters are going to get choppy.
Speaker 1:So, anyways, let's talk about google launching audio ai overviews. So you know, an ai overview is that portion of the search result page when you type in a query and you see google thinking and it starts typing out a paragraph and it's like here's this and here's some links and here's that, and then below all that is the blue links, which those eventually will go away. That's pretty much going to be your search result page and that's going to suck for a lot of folks, because I don't know about you, but I don't really go much further than that. So it's kind of created what's called a walled garden in Google. But they are experimenting now with Google AI, with audio overviews and the search results. So you can just opt in to the experiment via search labs if you would like, but the overview creates an AI-generated audio summary of the search results. So not only can you read a summary of the search results of the thing you look for, you can also listen to it, so you can hear people talk Well, not a person, obviously, but you can hear somebody say this is what this audio is.
Speaker 1:So you know, here we are in that age. It's very star tracky. It's very, very star tracky. Um, you can listen to it, uh, before visiting. And it's really funny because the the thing that google says it's like before visiting the website. You can listen to it and I'm like I don't know if people are going to be visiting the website. I mean, if you're a're a D2C business, you know, in e-commerce, you're probably fine, you're going to be fine. But you know, yeah, got to be a little rough for those informational brochure sites out there.
Speaker 1:It only works in English right now for US users through the search app, search ads or search ads. You can tell where my brain is today through search labs. So how they work is when Google thinks that an audio overview might help, you might see an option to create a short audio summary. It'll be on the right side of your page, of your search result page, so probably more predominantly found if you use Google's search, like it's actual app, uh, that that you can get on iOS or Android Um, and so that'll give you a way to look at the experiment if you want Um. But it processes the information, uh, for the search result page and it creates a little audio snippet and then you kind of get to listen to that snippet. It's very straightforward stuff. I know Um audio overviews. You got to sign up for the experiment.
Speaker 1:So Search Labs is Google's testing platform for all the new search features, and if you want to be that person that's like you know what, I don't mind being a guinea pig go forth and be comfortable. By doing so, you can try on different things. There's this thing called Try On, so it's as you shop you can see how pieces of clothing will look on you. You can kind of check out that ability. They have a filmmaking tool called Flow seamlessly create cinematic clips. You can try Wisk, which is going to let you use images as prompts to visualize your ideas. These are all cool things.
Speaker 1:At the end of the day, though, I'm still going to argue as an agency owner. You're still going to need a professional to both not only use the tools but to also put things together in a way that makes sense for the audience you're trying to reach, because you're making ads now on your own and DIY ads I'm sorry, just don't perform as well as professional ones. I'll die on that hill because I've seen it and AI right now is kind of really good at kind of gathering up everything, but you really need a person to watch for hallucinations. You really need to watch for incorrect references. You need to watch for just the repetitiveness of what it says.
Speaker 1:Ryan Reynolds has a new Mint Mobile commercial and he cuts into audio or AI for writing the scripts. It's kind of funny, it's in his tone, but still, you know it's a way to kind of adapt what was written from AI into something organic. However, anyhow, the whole thing is that when you're using AI, it sounds great Like I'm going to save so much money in so much time, but you're really not. You're going to set a precedence that your brand if you don't really care as much about your brand is is is perceived that you're kind of making these shortcuts, then you're going to either attract an audience that doesn't either, or anybody else that will maybe care Right. So you kind of have to understand how what you project is what you hope to attract, and so be very careful and judicious in using AI and the tools that are offered.
Speaker 1:And I'm not saying don't use them. I'm just saying pick the ones you want to use that you're good at, but always rely on a professional to kind of polish that. I do it all the time as myself. Yeah, I can make a website for somebody, but they start to all look the same after a while, which is why I go get a designer and that's what they do. And then I have a creative director that makes sure that we don't design color outside the lines, because I was told months ago any idiot can color in a coloring book. I'm not sure how context of that was, I just thought it was funny, but it is kind of true. You get some crayons, a coloring book and tell them to color and they can do it, but it's not going to necessarily make sense. You know, if you want to try to make sense out of it. Anyways, that's enough of that. So, looking ahead, um, it's just another step in effort for Google search to create multiple ways to access the interwebs and, uh, in, in the end, in the end, it's a good thing, it's a, it really is. Um, you know, especially if you are impaired, uh, and that's where I can see that just the biggest benefit of you know, of that Google finally adopting some kind of you know, the ecosystem and how AI is changing it.
Speaker 1:The CEO responded to these concerns and one of the quotes he said is well, he was asked in the idea that AI mode will still take you to the web, to the human created web. You know, yes, that's going to be the core design principle for us. So it's very much like if somebody makes something, they're still going to go there and he says, yes, so I, you know, users sending Google, sending users to a human created webpage Um, it's important because a lot of these websites are made by people. Um, hopefully, um, you know you want those referrals. You, it's, your website is your digital front door of your business, and so imagine being going to a restaurant being greeted by a robot. You might think it's cool and it's really neat, but then you order a burger and they bring you a cow. You're like I don't think you got this process right, my man. So that's sort of something kind of how I view it.
Speaker 1:Um, he was question about Google's AI overviews and the modes, and he still wants to end up on the human-created web. It would still go there us to deliver higher quality referrals. Right, you know where people are like. They have a much higher likelihood of finding what they're looking for. They're exploring, they're curious. Their intent is getting satisfied more. That's what our metrics show. That's coming from the CEO of Google telling you about search.
Speaker 1:So the interviewer said it makes humans that create the web nervous. The journalists are getting they've already been nervous. Look, I think I tell you what, trying to read these quotes by the way, it's not me, this is how they read I am really struggling, like so he responded. The CEO of Google responded look, I think the news and journalism will play an important role, you know, in the future. We're pretty committed to it, right. Journalism will play an important role, you know, in the future, we're pretty committed to it, right. And so I think, making sure that ecosystem, in fact, I think we'll be able to differentiate ourselves as a company over time because of our commitment there. So it's something I think you know I definitely value and have a lot of. As we design, as we are designing, we'll continue to prioritize approaches Clever way of, I guess, saying like no, we still care about people. But yeah, I mean, you know. Look, we all know Google's in the mode of making money. I mean, the next chapter of searches is literally this we're not going to escape it. You know we talked about many years like marketing. There's even commercials now for marketing using AI, and it's not going to go away.
Speaker 1:It's back in the day, a friend of mine made a great analogy that you know you would go into a class and you would learn hey, you can't use that calculator. That's cheating. I need to see your work. Well, we've all moved from being able to manually calculate and figure out math problems with pen and paper to now becoming operators of the machine that figures out the problem by us just inputting data. So that is where this is going. As you are looking at a marketing agency and you go, hmm, you guys use an AI. Well, they're all going to say, yes, it's all going to be buzzwordy in that way anyway. Even we do that, I admit, but we actually do use it. But I'm not going to tell you how I use it, not because I'm trying to hide something, because there is a way you ask things and there's a way you don't, how we prompt AI to create what it does or draft. We don't deliver that as the final product. We have actual humans that still operate and deliver and you talk to and that's important because it's still very relational for us as a business and delivering these things, because brand is a message.
Speaker 1:It is not a simple here's an ad and I made it. It's got a picture of a person 20% off. It's more than that it is. What picture of what kind of person does it share the demographic of the audience you're trying to hit? Is this offer within the margins of what you're able to sell and absorb as a retailer? Is 20% cutting into those margins? Are we okay to use 20%? Should it be 5%, 15? Buy one, get one? What you know? Those are things that require a little bit more in-depth thinking and discussion between us and the clientele, and I'm sorry but I just don't think an AI robot is going to do that as well, because the AI robot unless you input a ton of spreadsheets of your finances, maybe not. It's going to take a lot of time. We can do that, but it takes a lot of time.
Speaker 1:So how you ask is important. Like you walk up to a counter to order a sandwich, you don't walk up and go like I want a sandwich, I'm hungry. They make 17 different kinds of sandwiches. What do you want? What size? Medium, large, small? You don't. What do you want? What size, medium, large, small? Do you want to drink with it?
Speaker 1:It still requires human interaction and it always will, and with something serious as food as it is with your business. I would hope that we all don't lose sight of that as we chase this, obviously, this new shiny object that keeps coming up in different ways, because that technology is still in its infancy. So be careful adopting something that isn't practical enough for your business to use, because you're probably going to distract yourself away from actually doing what you need to be working on in your business, and that may be like working on how to better manage your finances or, who knows, being married to things. But just be careful with the shiny objects is all I urge the listeners here. I really urge them to do uh, because it can, you can definitely start. It's a slippery slope. And uh, next thing, you know, months and weeks have passed and oh, and it happens to all of us.
Speaker 1:So, um, one last thing um, you know, emphasizes that Google remains the front page of the internet, but their commitment to making it easier for users to explore the web with only more context and that's a fair statement Um, changing how things have worked for 20 years, it's difficult, even the last 15, it's difficult and it's hard to believe we are talking about something that's been around that long. So he answered you know, look. In some ways, when mobile came, people wanted answers to more questions, so we're constantly evolving it, but you're right this moment that evolution because underlying technology is becoming much more capable you can have AI give a lot of context, but one of our important design goals, though, is when you come to Google search. You're going to get a lot of context, but you're going to go and find a lot of things out on the web, so that will be true in AI mode and in AI overviews, and so on. Takeaway is look, we're just giving you a summary the cliff notes, if you will, for those that know what those are of what you're looking for. But all these websites, you're still going to have to sift through them, and basically, I think he's trying to say we're not going to steal the traffic away from those places, making all other marketing initiatives very much valid and very much requiring professionals.
Speaker 1:If you like this episode of the NerdBrand podcast, be sure to go to nerdbrandagencycom slash podcast and you can sign up for future episodes. We're doing emails now. We've had a list going. If you would like to be a part of a segmented list that just gets podcast episodes, please be sure to visit us at nerdbrandagencycom. Slash podcast and sign up and we'll see you next week and keep your nerd band strong.
