Google’s new updates could trigger chaos for web creators and AI startups

Founded by former Google and OpenAI employees, Perplexity’s product is an AI chatbot search engine that provides conversational responses.

Google’s new AI-enhanced search promises to do much the same thing, but already boasts a loyal user base. This could allow users to abandon tools like Perplexity AI and go directly to Google for their AI needs.

This is not the first time that Big Tech has wreaked havoc on small players.

Last year, a minor update to ChatGPT that allowed it to interact with PDFs threatened to make startups creating “wrappers” for AI chatbots redundant. As Hasan Chowdhury of Business Insider pointed out at the time, startups without moat make them significantly different from their competitors risk being looted.

Google’s new AI search is also making creators nervous that web traffic could be disrupted.

The company’s new vision for research could transform the way the Internet has worked for decades. Instead of displaying a list of links to respond to queries, it could send users automated responses and disrupt the flow of web traffic.

Many internet creators rely on SEO to generate clicks, drive traffic and ad revenue.

Google appears to be aware of some of these concerns. In a blog post, head of research Liz Reid expressed concerns that the changes could lead to fewer visits to the website.

“We find that links included in AI previews generate more clicks than if the page had appeared as a traditional web listing for that query,” she wrote. “As we expand this experience, we will continue to focus on sending valuable traffic to publishers and creators.”

Google did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.