If you search for a personal injury lawyer (which IIRC a single click on an ad would fetch google a thousand bucks), a chatGPTesque answer could be more convincing in leading you to a paid resource than a list of options with an ad. Imagine an AI half as smart as chatGPT who’s primary goal is to not just give you the answer but also convince you in a legally acceptable way to click a sponsored result.
But that blurs editorial and advertising even worse than Google does now. It would make them a laughingstock, and the reputational damage plus competition from companies who have different revenue models would cause loss of market share anyway.
If Google is going to survive this, they need to find a way to get back to prioritizing user value while also making money.
