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The public model is very unimpressive. The scores for the ultra model seem fine. In the end it’s irrelevant, Google can’t replace search with LLMs without compromising their central product and core business (for both technical reasons and because of rules on native advertising). They can try and will try to sell this to enterprise customers, but others have a head start and I think margin in the LLM game will be strongly limited by the fact that the top 3-4 models from Google/Meta/MS/Anthropic will all be interchangeable for most use.
I would say it's far from irrelevant, as much as doing that would be a net negative for Google, they don't have a choice when compared to the alternative of having it be even worse if OAI/Microsoft make them redundant.
They can weep and wail, but they're getting on the bandwagon too, the Porsche is running out of fuel.
They can jump on the wagon, but they’re a waking corpse unless they can figure out how to serve ads in LLM results without breaking the rules or being useless to advertisers. And even if they figure out how, the underlying nature of LLMs as question answering machines is a huge blow to their non-search ads business.
I do not disagree it's a big blow. But to ignore it is a bigger one.
Bing does that, I haven't heard anyone file a lawsuit against them.
Bing’s LLM ads aren’t worth much, the challenge is that the existence of the model itself invalidates much of the earlier advertising-driven directory approach.
The valuable thing would be the model recommending you a Samsung TV because they paid Google to mention them whenever someone asks which TV to buy. That’s illegal, in the US and elsewhere.
I’m gonna need a citation on this one … if this were true then it seems by definition the little ads atop my search results advertising — you guessed it, TVs — would also be illegal. Yet there they are.
They have to be labelled as ads. The model can’t just ‘happen’ to recommend you a Samsung TV, it has to give its regular answer and then, maybe if it mentions a Samsung TV (but there’s no guarantee it will, and whether it does can’t be based on a commercial relationship with Google) they can serve a banner ad next to the answer for it. But this is less lucrative because it’s less predictable, the advertiser has to hope the model organically recommends their products OR accept that it won’t and serve their ads next to relevant prompts anyway, which is much less useful than the current dynamic where serving ads under a ‘best TV $500’ search query sells them the TV before they consider whether there are better options.
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It's not illegal if it's clearly identified as an ad, or at least if it's obvious enough that any reasonable person would know it's an ad. Here's a primer from the FTC if you have any further questions:
https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/native-advertising-guide-businesses
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