AI Search Apps Succeed Because of Their UI, Not their LLMs
Being New Matters More Than Any Model
OpenAI launched ChatGPT Search today and it’s pretty great! Some test queries yielded good results, similar to Perplexity in quality and style. On a whim I tried the same queries on Google, and you know what? The content is nearly identical.
Here are the results on Google on ChatGPT Search for the query, “What are the best restaurants in Alameda?”
The list of spots is almost exactly the same (they are correct – Trabocco is a gem), both delivered as a scrollable list and paired with a map.
Here are the results for, “Who is Drew Breunig?”
Both Google and ChatGPT grab the bio from the front page of this site and present it at the top, though ChatGPT changes the voice and slightly tweaks the wording.
The difference between the results is the cruft: all the stuff Google presents around the core answer to the query – page results, similar questions, links to other products and filters, suggested filters, and ads.
These things – which Google has accumulated over decades – are nearly impossible to remove right now. Their ad business customers, their partners, the ecosystem of content creators, businesses with webpages, their internal products, many of thier employees, and their own users whould scream, protest, walk away, and sue if Google wiped the slate clean and delivered the design ChatGPT and Perplexity are delivering.
There’d be congressinal hearings and even more antitrust actions!
Google’s hands are tied by their baggage. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and the rest of the new kids on the block are succeeding (and delivering great products!) because of their newness not because of their tech. They’re getting the challenger’s benefit. The same one used by Apple against Blackberry, Netflix against cable channels and studios, Tesla against automakers, and so on.
Google continues to have the gigantic advantage of distribution – which the new batch needs to upset to truly make a run at the king. But to compete with the new UX, Google needs to find a way to reset that won’t trigger all the parties ready to complain.