Google "Project Magi"

MICHAEL:
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INTRO: It's time for The SEO Show, where a couple of nerds talk search engine optimization so you can learn to compete in Google and grow your business online. Now here's your hosts, Michael and Arthur.

MICHAEL: Hello, and welcome to the SEO show. I am Michael Costin. And I am Arthur Fabik. And we are here to talk about Project Magi, Magi, Magi, Magi, not too sure about the name, but Project Magi, we're going to call it.

ARTHUR: Well, you looked up how to pronounce it and it was Magi.

MICHAEL: Magi. But it was one of those YouTube videos where they take a minute to get to the pronunciation. I think it's Maggie. Yeah. Let's go with Maggie. Or Maggi noodles. Could be Maggi.

ARTHUR: That's double G I, isn't it? True. So let's just call it project Maggie. Maggie. And if we're wrong, we're wrong.

MICHAEL: We'll move on. So basically what is it? What do you think it is, Arthur? What's your, what's your succinct elevator pitch for project Maggie?

ARTHUR: Well, it's not what I think it's what I read and what it is. Okay. It's Google's attempt of implementing AI into the search results. So creating a product similar to chat GPT where people can put in a query and Google will come back with. response basically. Yeah. Um, I mean, that's what it is, right?

MICHAEL: Yeah. I would say in true Google form, it's, it's their second attempt at AI cause, um, they pumped out barbed really quickly when chat GPT came out and they were freaking out and. If I know Google, they like having multiple projects that kind of do the same thing on the go at the same time and then killing them. Do you remember Google glasses?

ARTHUR: I do. That was something I was really keen on getting, you know, they just, they never, they never bought it out.

MICHAEL: But do you remember like all the people that did get them, they paid like 1500 bucks or whatever it was. And they'd be walking around with them at conferences. And it was kind of like, well, I thought it was a bit knobby. Wasn't it?

ARTHUR: Well, cause it was, they were like first adopters and it was a brand new product, but I know we're going off topic here, but I thought it was really cool having like a head heads up display where it just flashed information that was relevant to you in your like peripheral vision.

MICHAEL: But that's, that was the dream that were sold, but I don't know that it actually was anywhere near as cool as what.

ARTHUR: Well, they stopped making it people for consumers like a decade ago, but then they still produced it for, I think, businesses that required that sort of tech. I can't remember if it was like engineering and mining companies or something, but then recently got rid of it. And I digress, but- Do you use Google lens at all? I have, I don't often use it, but I have in the past.

MICHAEL: And did you, do you use Google voice search?

ARTHUR: In the car, yeah. A little. Oh, I don't really talk to her as I'm driving.

MICHAEL: And then when I need to, cause these are all things we've been told were super important that never actually caught on. I use.

ARTHUR: Maybe not so much voice search, but when I use my Google Nest at home, I'll say play the latest episode of the SEO show, for example, but I don't really ask it for things like, no, Hey Google, what's the best recipe for this? I don't talk to it.

MICHAEL: So it's important. Well, the reason I've sort of asked you that question is. I want to ponder in this episode, whether project Maggie is even something people want, but we'll get to that in a minute. So let's, let's break it down a bit. Google, there's a New York times article that came out. That's got a whole bunch of, um, internal communications and materials that they've cited that they referred to in the article. Basically what they're saying is that AI has become a bit of an obsession at Google. They want to put AI into everything. They're freaking out. So this project Maggi, you can sort of break it down into two categories. There's what they're doing at the moment, which is shoehorning AI into their existing search and products. And then longer term, they're working on an all new AI search engine. So it's total re-imagining of Google, essentially. Now it has about 160 people like that's they've been tasked with working on it. Um, so what it is is ultimately going to be like a chat like interface, like chat GPT, where their whole 10 results SERPs get replaced with that to provide instant answers. And then you can sort of go into more depth on the answers and the questions in a sort of chat format rather than traditional SERPs. Right. That I think is a long-term goal. As soon as next month, they're going to be banging out new features in Google search and testing it with, you know, portions of users around the world.

ARTHUR: Is that not very similar to Bing chat? Yes. Or the same, exactly the same?

MICHAEL: Exactly the same. What do you think? What do you think of Bing chat?

ARTHUR: I haven't really used it as much as I would have liked. I found it slow and painful. I don't like chatting to things. I wanna like, if I'm searching for a specific thing, I don't wanna chat to like a interface. You know what I mean? Like, I guess it depends on the purpose, but if I'm searching for, let's just say, I don't know, products. I want to compare TVs. I'm not going to ask AI what's the best TV. I'm going to do my own research. Yeah. So.

MICHAEL: Well, I use, I use Bing chat and I typed in, it was one of their prompts that they're sort of, here's what it can do. Prompts like find me a meal plan to lose weight or something. You have to sit there and watch as it all types out.

ARTHUR: So like slow.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Who wants to sit there and watch text be typed out on a screen that you can just read in an article or watching a YouTube video.

ARTHUR: Yeah. We did it with Rob like a couple of weeks ago when it was first announced once we got access to it and I didn't enjoy it. Yeah. And the results that gave were not that good. No. So pretty useless in my opinion, but.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So it's the same way as talking to a chat bot. Like let's say you go on com bank or something and you need help with whatever. Yes. And there's just this annoying chat bot in the way, making things more difficult before you get to speak to a human. I kind of feel at the moment, let's not just say that long-term it will be this, but at the moment it's just a worse experience I feel than just a normal search.

ARTHUR: Yeah. But think about the reasons you use chat GPT. It's not to search for things. It's to, it's other queries. It's to improve, like content or texts that you've got or give ideas or put together like an outline of a campaign or whatever. You're not asking like, hey, chat GPT, what's the best TV or what's the best keto recipe or whatever. At least I'm not. That's not what I use it for. I use it to assist me in like the work I do.

MICHAEL: Create, yeah, ideating stuff, fine tuning stuff. Yep. So I guess this is to me at the moment, it's feeling like them, um, forcing something on users without necessarily. wondering, is this the experience people actually want? They're just playing catch up. They're freaking out about chat GPT. Chat GPT has got the brand at the moment. It's cool. It's what everyone talks about. No one thinks about BARD or Google for AI. And, um, they're playing catch up. They're going to jam this into search results and tell us we, we want it like they did with voice search when no one really uses voice search.

ARTHUR: Do you think it's going to be, uh, what's, what's the word just sentimental blank. like a phase, like a gimmick, like something that's just, it's cool now, but- A fad. A fad. No, well AI long-term. AI, yes. But I mean, chat GPT in general. Cause remember when Dali 2 came out and it was a massive fad, everyone was using it. Everyone was like excited and pumping like images and stuff. And now people don't really care about it.

MICHAEL: No, I think chat GPT is way more groundbreaking and useful. Dali 2 did weird images. Yeah. Chat GPT makes your life much easier. Okay. I feel. Excuse me, I've had a little frog in my throat there, but I guess I want to go back to where this sort of started from because Google, right? Google pays Samsung three bill a year, bill with a B, and it pays Apple 20 bill a year to be the default search engine on their devices. So if they're paying that much, imagine what it's worth to them in terms of revenue to be on those devices and, you know, all the search revenue that they get from it. And Samsung have basically put it out to tender recently, where they said to Google, you have to pitch for this again, because we might go with Bing. And it sort of blindsided Google. So this New York Times article spoke about where workers were, when they were told that they were pitching for it. internal messages were reacting with emojis and surprise saying, wow, okay, that's wild. And to me that just speaks to the arrogance of Google as a business and they've had it so good for so long. They're not really innovating, you know, they make their search results worse with each update.

ARTHUR: What's the most recent innovative thing Google has released? If you like, if you can name anything.

MICHAEL: Hmm.

ARTHUR: The last thing, so you've mentioned Google, was it, what was the plus? Was it Google Plus? That was terrible. Yeah, I know. But I mean, that was the last like big thing that they've kind of.

MICHAEL: No, they must have, surely they've done stuff since Google Plus. They've done stuff, but nothing that was really innovative. Nothing innovative. They see most of their copycat stuff exists briefly and then it gets shuttered. And this is a copycat thing. They're playing catch up. Um, I just don't know, like, what have they been doing all this time with such a dominant, they've been lazy, resting on their laurels, making money. I feel focusing on other areas rather than, you know, developing and innovating because they haven't had to now, all of a sudden there's this existential threat to them with AI. Even though they should have really good AI capability internally, but maybe they do.

ARTHUR: Maybe they just haven't released it or haven't really, maybe it's all a secret at the moment. Because surely you think that they would have been working on that behind the scenes.

MICHAEL: Sure. They've got that deep mind AI research.

ARTHUR: We're thinking how much data they have and information about every single one of us. Yeah. So surely they've been using that.

MICHAEL: So, yeah. So in theory, if they execute on this, well, they've got the scale, they've got the users, they can roll it out and crush ChatGPT. ChatGPT has a brand behind it. The, is Google nimble enough for this? I wonder like they have layers of managers with managers, managing them and managers managing them.

ARTHUR: Well, they need really, it's all about money for them. So how, how are they going to monetize it and what's, what's it going to be worth to them? Yes. Cause chat GPT is like, you know, it's own thing. It's not really focused on making profits.

MICHAEL: And it's got two aspects. One part is for profit and the other isn't. But did you know the, uh, the CEO there was independently wealthy for open AI. So he doesn't own any equity in it. He didn't want it clouding his judgment in making decisions for the business. I'm sure he's got some sort of, I don't know. Yeah. That's the story that they told. So how does Google compete with that when they're like, all of their revenue comes from Google ads. And what, what, what we're talking about here is a big, massive upheaval in their whole model platform they've built.

ARTHUR: All their revenue comes from data, really knowing everything about us, where we are, where we go, where we visit places we go to, what we buy, who we talk to, what we talk about.

MICHAEL: But like, let's come back to this chat bot search engine and it just spits out like, what is the best, I don't know carpenter near me. And it gives you one carpenter. Like where, where are the ads? And like, how do they, how do they, they could probably incorporate ads into it, into the answer.

ARTHUR: Maybe like a promoted, like, just like they do with a normal search result.

MICHAEL: So you have ads above the answer.

ARTHUR: Yeah, potentially. Cause if you're, it might not just spit out one, but it might spit out three like plumbers or whatever near you. And then one of them might be a, an ad or like a promoted or that's how they'll do it.

MICHAEL: But like wonder what timeframe we're talking with this as well, because chat GPT is big now. Bing has it now. How long is it going to take Google to actually roll this out? And like, we've got Google ads in its current form. They're going to have to totally redo all of that as well to work with this new AI search. Do you think it's going to replace search? Well, that's interesting. I don't know because people. Ultimately, like let's, like there's, let's just say a search result. It gives you 10 blue links. Traditionally, you can click on the ones that interest you research and, you know, go from there as opposed to this value proposition of getting one answer. by AI. The all-knowing AI has picked one thing. Like, can you trust that that's the right thing?

ARTHUR: Not at the moment, but I mean, things evolve and things change and people change. And what was normal 10 years ago, 15 years ago, seems crazy now. So maybe in the future, people won't want to see 10 different results. They'll just trust the AI, which has been, improving and learning and learning about you to give you a personalized result based on you, based on whatever you've been searching, what you've been talking about. So it gets to that point where it learns about you and that's kind of scary to think about, but it knows what you want to see for specific queries. But I think ultimately it's a moment people, I like comparing things. I like choosing what I read. You know what I mean? I don't want just some stuff

MICHAEL: blasted at me. Particularly when it's all ultimately controlled by one corporation. Well, that's the thing.

ARTHUR: They might have an agenda as well. You know what I mean? So yeah, having, having choice is good. And I think with the current search results, I feel like a lot of people still use like Google. Yeah.

MICHAEL: Well, it's like being at the moment you search stuff and then it's got the chat bot aspect to it on the right hand side. So you can sort of, so maybe do both.

ARTHUR: That's probably what they'll do. Yeah.

MICHAEL: That's what I think they'll do short term. They will shoehorn AI into the existing search results. they'll probably find people don't use it. Yeah. I mean, everyone will use chat GPT for the stuff we spoke about, like ideation and helping with their work and Google for searching for stuff and ignore the AI is my prediction anyway.

ARTHUR: Like chat GPT is completely different to like a SERP, like a search engine. So yeah, I don't know. I'd like to know how many people actually use Bing chat like religiously every day. I doubt many people do. Yeah.

MICHAEL: So I don't know. What do you think it means for SEO?

ARTHUR: Well, if it. It depends.

MICHAEL: I feel like- That's a great SEO answer right there.

ARTHUR: Well, no, because if long-term potentially not very good, like if it's going to go down the path of just giving you one or a couple of choices or answers to a particular query, then if you don't have the SERPs and you don't have your, you know, top 10 organic results, then SEO is really dead, isn't it? But will it ever get to that? Who knows? And how will it determine what answer it provides. There's obviously going to be some algorithm behind it that's going to determine this is the best result for this particular query. So there's probably still going to be some aspect of SEO evolved that would just evolve like it has over the last 20 years.

MICHAEL: The thing is at the moment, Google is pretty simple at the end of the day. You influence it by content links. Yes. Whereas AI, like there's a large language model that is enormous in terms of scope. I don't know how you will influence showing in that one answer that it gives.

ARTHUR: Being Google, wouldn't it piss off a lot of businesses and corporations that rely on Google to make money by just showing, if you were to just give them one result, why would people want to be on there? Yeah.

MICHAEL: So I would writers and publishers keep creating content. They wouldn't, they'll be disincentivized to.

ARTHUR: So like if you're Amazon or whatever, and people are searching for specific products and you're not getting any Amazon returns or results, why would that get pissed off?

MICHAEL: Well, Google, from what I saw in the news articles about this, Google's dream is for everything to be done within the search engine. So like transacting as well, using Google pay to pay. So like you want to book a flight, you go type into the AI, find me the best flights to get to Rome by this date or whatever. And it goes out and finds it all presents it to you. And then you transact there. And then would you do that? Yeah, just blindly trusting that it's right. I guess if it was proving that it was good.

ARTHUR: Well, if it was giving you comparisons and like with Skyscanner, giving you examples of the cheapest flights and purchasing it through Google, that's fine. But would you willingly just purchase a flight because you've asked, hey Google, what's the best flight on this date to here? This is the flight.

MICHAEL: No, I'll often put flights into Google. Yeah. Use Google travel or flights, whatever it's called, where it shows results. And I go to the airlines and check and see. I use Skyscanner. Yeah. Either, or like you could use that too. And then you can still go check and see on the actual airline websites. Cause you don't trust. I don't trust, you know, that they're the best deals necessarily.

ARTHUR: So basically trust people will need to get to a stage where they'll trust whatever blindly trust AI is telling them. Yep. Because until then no one's going to listen to it.

MICHAEL: And I don't, yeah, I don't know that Google deserves being blindly trust. I haven't done a lot to show that they should be. Um, here's a big, here's a big elephant in the room. What if Apple come to the party, Like at some point, right. These, these, um, AI tools run, I'm going to say in the cloud, like you access on your computer and all the computations done in the cloud. But what if we get to the point where every Apple device has one of these AI type systems in it? Like Siri. Yeah. But like on steroids in the future. Yeah. where does that leave something like Google or Bing or any search engine? They're just like a middleman then.

ARTHUR: Well, because I don't know if people, I know that they do, but I don't know how many people actually use voice search for the same purpose as they do like a Google search on a computer.

MICHAEL: I'm not just saying voice, so you could hit a button on your iPhone. You could either talk to it if you wanted to, or you could write in like anything, like question and it's own AI answers questions, finds products, lets you check out.

ARTHUR: Well, it's basically Siri, but like you said on storage.

MICHAEL: Because I think that is a huge potential of happening long-term. And then Google just becomes like this relic, this dinosaur, Google search, you know, because they don't control, Apple control the means of distribution of this stuff, like accessing it. It's kind of like how Apple crushed Facebook. with the, not crush them, but they really hurt them with the iOS 14 update. Potentially Apple can do the same to Google and Bing and booking.com and Expedia, all these sites by releasing an Epic AI once they really get it dialed in in the future. Yeah. Anyway.

ARTHUR: No, that's true. Yeah.

MICHAEL: I didn't think of it that way. And then, um, I don't know where that leaves SEO. For me, like SEO is going to rely on people wanting to search the way they always have and having some element of control or a feeling of control. Yeah. So like at least they can, or choice, choice, feeling of choice. So if there's, there's got to be traditional search options. So maybe these AIs will offer that in future. Like they give answers and then say, don't like these, like, click here and it displays a list of results. Maybe that's how they'll strike the balance. Who knows? Who knows?

ARTHUR: But- Who knows? I think this is all like long-term what we're talking about now. Yeah. Five, 10 years.

MICHAEL: Potentially. It's moving at a rapid pace. So time will tell, I guess. But it's a little bit of a downer, isn't it? For a SEO podcast.

ARTHUR: Well, yeah, I guess so.

MICHAEL: I mean, look, it's now called the AI show.

ARTHUR: Yeah. I still think that SEO will exist. I still think that there's going to be, um, like the AI is going to have to come up with results for everything somehow. So I don't know.

MICHAEL: It's all speculation at the moment. Yeah. Yep. It is all speculation, but, um, this project Magi is Magi, Magi, Magi, it's happening right now. It's going to be interesting to see what Google comes out. So within the month, apparently, we'll start to see these first public tests of what they're, the AI that they're shoehorning into their existing search engine. This new, all new Google, that's definitely long-term. I reckon it'll be underwhelming. So do I. It's like a lot of this stuff you go on Twitter, you go on Reddit, people are freaking out. Like there's all sorts of predictions for the future, always on like the very extreme end. And then there's, I guess the middle point is where it's probably going to settle. So big disruptive game changing.

ARTHUR: Maybe it'll just all be monetized and it'll just return results based on like bidding potentially. Do we talk about this or do we talk about offer?

MICHAEL: No, we kind of touched on it before.

ARTHUR: Because ultimately they want money, profits. And that they make the profits through ads. That's the biggest part of it. So if they were to eliminate ads and just go through like the AI route of giving you like, here's the best answer to your question, how would they make money off it? Unless it's purchasing it straight from Google, but ultimately most of the revenue comes from ads, right? So they would have to incorporate it somehow. So that's Google.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Right now it's probably a bit beyond us to come up with some business model that doesn't use ads.

ARTHUR: Unless Google's listening to us and trying to get ideas.

MICHAEL: I don't think so. I think they have better places to go for ideas and you and I, but, um, look every, every big internet company really tends to not every, but like a lot of them just lean towards ads. It's proven it works. It's easy to understand for everyone. So Google will have to blow up their ad business and ad platform to really wholeheartedly go down this path, really change it up. So that's a huge, that's huge. That is a massive shakeup. If it happens, if, and when it happens, what we're most likely going to end up with is a chatbot shoves on the right hand side where the ads used to be in Google SERPs that no one uses.

ARTHUR: And they will disappear and then we'll move on and forget that ever popped up.

MICHAEL: Yeah. I think there's a Twitter page called killed by Google or something like that, where it lists all the stuff that they have launched and got rid of over the years. We'll see Bart on there soon. Yep. And probably Maggie in a couple of years.

ARTHUR: Google plus. Yep. Google reader. What was Google plus called before Google plus?

MICHAEL: Uh, I thought it was, yeah, it was always called Google plus. Wasn't it? No. Cause I remember there's, um, they used to favor SERPs like authors that linked their profile to Google plus an SEO tactic for a while there to use it. And then they just get rid of it. Everyone put all this time into building their Google plus following or tried to. Was it Google wave? No, no, that was, um, the navigation, which is still around, isn't it? Yeah, no, I think so. Yeah. Oh, Google. Wait, that's ways. Sorry. No way. I wave. Sorry. Wave. Yeah. Who knows? There's a, there's a, there's a massive graveyard of ex Google products out there. Google buzz. No, don't even know what that is anyway. And ultimately all their revenue comes from search. So how much appetite they're going to have to blow all of that up in the name of this AI push that they're on time will tell.

ARTHUR: Time will tell.

MICHAEL: But until then, happy SEOing. We'll see you next week. That's an abrupt end. Well, look, I thought it was a good segue. Okay. Well, do you have any wise last words you want to use?

ARTHUR: Yeah. Keep calm and keep SEOing. It's still a long way away. So SEO still lives.

MICHAEL: It does. SEO has died about 50 times in the decade or so we've been doing it and it's probably going to die another 50 times in the next decade. So keep calm and happy SEOing. Happy SEOing. See ya.

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