Has Google AI Overview Cut Your Internet Usage?
There is an article in /c/Tech about Reddit reconsidering it's contract with Google because it's AI Overview provides the answer and therefore costing them traffic to the site.
Which got me to thinking; I do spend a lot less time on the internet now, and the time spent is rarely going to actual websites. Granted, I spend most of my time looking up answers to technical questions when I get stuck. At work, usually Revit or computer questions. At home, boat or car project questions, or gardening, etc.
"How do I detach a beam end Revit 26"
"What's reference voltage for XYZ sensor 91 Bronco"
"Can I grow dandelions to eat?"
Now, instead of spending an hour+ digging through Forums/Reddit/Hobby sites, I'm usually on and off again in a few minutes. It saves me several hours a week when I'm working on a given project. I'm not sure how this will affect my ability to dig in and research going forward, but I do enjoy the extra free time.
What's your experience?
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Comments
Part of the problem is that websites actually cause the friction because instead of giving the answer when you open the website, they want you to read the whole thing and look at ads. For forums, only reddit has sufficient results for me unfortunately, although I started using reddit alternatives such as this site to reduce my reliance on reddit mainly because I was shadow banned there.
I'll read an AI overview then check a few of the links lower in the listing to verify. I trust no one 😄
It was good until I realized it gives the wrong answer sometimes. Now I double check which defeats the purpose
Have you used it recently? It will site sources for it's answers. I find that really speeds up the double check.
Yes, even with the sources, it's wrong sometimes idk why. I find myself clicking on the sources to review and confirm. I'm searching for niche info though, not general stuff so that may be the problem.
Google AI Overview is sometimes wrong and has sometimes quoted things from 2 different info's on one website.
Gemini is a bit better.
I use duckduckgo to search for stuff.
Oh whoops, literally just replied in the other post hahah.
Yes it has - and I do think AI overviews are helpful and good for user experience in most cases. The problem is that Google is the one benefiting while the experts/writers etc. who spent the time and money to put it together get nothing.
Sites used to be fine with Google scraping their content since Google sent them users in returns. Now with the AI overviews, it has become a mostly one-side exchanged so I'm curious to see what happens since publishers and writers are no longer incentivized to keep writing.
So I don't get confused, I'm going to stick to this thread 😅
I had a similar thought. I wonder if there will be a break-over point that starts to lose money for Google? Lets say the AI Overview becomes so good that it kills enough site traffic such that those sites pay for less advertising and search priority, that the shrinking profit margins cause the share price to drop. I mean, that's a pretty radical scenario, but I bet it's in the realm of possibility.
That's also a good point! Less traffic is less incentive to create new content, so there will less new information to parse 😬