Ever since ChatGPT became viral, the tech industry has been obsessed with the idea of AI chatbots and how they'll influence us. In fact, Microsoft now integrates a ChatGPT-like chatbot directly into Bing, dubbing it the "new Bing" designed to disrupt Google's monopoly in the space.

As expected, Google retaliated by showcasing its own chatbot called Bard, a part of Google Search. The big question is, how will these AI-powered search engines of the near future change the internet? Although nothing is certain yet, our following six predictions should give you an idea of what to expect.

1. Users Will Get Instant Answers via Chat

The fundamental goal of AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bard is to save users time. Right now, if you search a query on Google, for example, you're shown an endless list of articles and expected to manually find your answer by reading through enough of them. If you think about it, this method is not very efficient.

When you ask someone something in the real world, for example, you don't expect a long exhaustive commentary detailing everything about the subject. Rather, you expect a short, tailored answer based on experience that uses examples and metaphors and is easy to understand. If you later wish to get more detail, you nudge them to elaborate further.

This is exactly what AI search is trying to replicate. It's trying to remove the drudgery out of internet search and deliver instant, relevant, and accurate answers without you having to do all the hard work of figuring it out yourself. But as you can guess, it's not that easy.

There are still a lot of problems with AI chatbots such as inaccuracy, bias, and the tendency to be repetitive. Solving these long-term problems will require a lot of user feedback to make the algorithm better identify the intent and context behind your search queries.

2. Search Will Become More Conversational

When you search a query on the internet today, you do it not in a way that would be natural, but in a way you think the algorithm will understand. Meaning, you're expected to type specific keywords and have at least basic knowledge of the industry jargon relevant to your query.

So, instead of searching "where should I go for a holiday this year?" you search "10 best holiday destinations in 2023." We do this because using a search engine instinctively feels like an investigation and is hence methodical, but talking to a chatbot can be perceived as more conversational. It means you'll be able to opt for more natural language.

3. Fact-Checking Will Become a Major Career

Inaccuracy is and perhaps will be the biggest problem with AI search for the foreseeable future. As they grow in availability, we imagine that most people might slowly transition from doing their own research to trusting the chatbot and taking its word for it. This is extremely dangerous for obvious reasons.

To combat this, it's very likely that Google and Microsoft will hire massive teams dedicated to fact-checking and limiting the spread of misinformation. In the same way that moderation is a key part of social media, fact-checking will become a key part of AI search.

4. Online Shopping Will Become Much Easier

AI search will make online shopping much more convenient. Instead of having to go through multiple reviews of multiple products from multiple creators, you can just ask the chatbot for the top recommendations of the product category you're looking for.

You can even ask it to compare specs and prices and get an instant summary of the features and limitations of the products you find interesting, and then simply choose one from the list. The summary will also contain an Amazon link, so you can instantly jump to the platform and buy the item.

In this whole situation, the only parties who are winning are you and Amazon. But creators, publications, and product reviewers will find themselves in a difficult position and probably not want their content used for summarization via a chatbot.

5. Human-Written Content Will Be a Priority

AI-generated content is technically not against Google's Search guidelines, but the company did clarify that "using automation—including AI—to generate content with the primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results is a violation of our spam policies."

Basically, you're free to use AI-generated content as a template, but not as the final product. Using ChatGPT for homework is one thing, but using it to write commercial content is not only unethical but also a very bad idea in the long term.

Qualities exclusive to human-written content such as originality, prior experience, judgment, storytelling, and unique perspective will become more valuable in the age of AI search. Why? Because in the same way that people hate answering automated calls from businesses, people probably also wouldn't want to read an article they know isn't written by a real human.

6. Websites Will Lose Search Traffic

We saw how AI search will help users save time and potentially create more jobs, but we haven't yet addressed the elephant in the room: monetization. Eventually, AI search will become satisfactory enough that users will no longer feel the need to visit web pages. This is great for users, but a nightmare for publications.

The internet as you know it today works on ad revenue. If people stop reading articles, publications will lose traffic and ad revenue. If they lose ad revenue, they can't pay their staff. If they can't pay their staff, no new content is produced. And if no new content is produced, these AI chatbots have nothing to summarize. Eventually, the internet dies.

Microsoft's response to this argument is that people will still want to dig deeper and click web pages despite having a chatbot assistant. But this might not be the case.

As we've seen with the rise of other short-form content, most people would probably not want to bother doing that if they're already getting short, quick answers to their queries, even if it's at the cost of losing context. Only time will tell how things play out.

The Age of AI Search Is Here

There are still hundreds of questions and uncertainties that need to be addressed about AI search. As tech geeks, we are indeed excited to see things evolve and experience the ways the tech can benefit us. But it looks like there are also some downsides to this new way of searching.

You might be saving a ton of time as a user getting a quick summary for your queries, but if there's no incentive left for your favorite creators and publications, where will new content come from? We remain curious and alert to see the developments that unfold among other tech trends this year.