TetraMesa

How Badly Will the GPTs Kick Google’s Teeth In

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Notice I didn’t ask “if” newer Artificial Intelligence tools like Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPTs) will impact Google. I asked “How badly.” While Google isn’t going anywhere, these new tools will chip away at its search market share and perhaps overall value. Google and parent company Alphabet develop properties from mobile operating systems to devices like Nest and Fitbit, Waymo autonomous driving, cloud services, and more. Still, advertising from search, YouTube and their network was almost 80% of their revenues in 2023. Google’s dominance remains and its advertising revenue is still its golden goose. However, GenAI tools introduce a serious competitive threat to the core search business. How badly will Google feel the impact?

Here’s a high level summary of the main points, after which I’ll try to defend each.

  1. Basic Search Needs: AI GPTs are increasingly satisfying basic search needs. While not perfect, they meet many use cases where users are seeking answers; not links to maybe answers.
  2. AI Stickiness: GPTs offer capabilities beyond search, encouraging users to stay in that space. Even with some of the challenges with AI accuracy, people may stick with a “good enough” solution.
  3. GPTs are Improving: These tools are rapidly evolving, fueled by intense investment and innovation.
  4. Google Is Somewhat Stuck: Google’s brand is so tied to traditional search that pivoting may alienate users or undermine its core business.
  5. Everyone is Attacking from Multiple Vectors: Yes. OpenAI’s ChatGPT may have been the alarm bell, but there’s a whole lot more coming; both consumer and business.
  6. Business Use Cases beyond advertising: People are paying premium prices.

That’s the tl;dr. Stop here. Or if you want the backup rationale behind these points, continue…

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Content Publishers Must Navigate the Rise of GenAI

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In a prior post, Will Generative AI Hurt Search & Publishers, I discussed how Generative AI could impact content publishers. Here I’ll suggest some strategic options for publishers, limited as they may be. It’s been a while since I’ve personally built large scale content products, but the category is in my blood from a deep history in digital publishing. As I’ve studied and worked with AI, I’ve felt compelled to share some ideas.

Generative AI and other machine learning tools are not just the latest tech flavor of the month. Their value is powerful and accelerating, especially for information like text, imagery, audio, and video. Numeric data as well of course, though finance and science have their own tools. We’re not focusing on coding, life sciences, atmospheric science, killer robots, or other technical fields here; rather on general content publishing.

Things aren’t all bad for publishers. GenAI brings both opportunities and challenges, offering efficiencies and creative possibilities, but also introducing complexities in quality and originality, with business model and revenue impacts.

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Product Discovery – Part 2 – Moving from Concept to Execution

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Introduction

This is a follow up to Product Discovery – Part 1 – Beyond the Checklist where we looked at a story as a lesson before considering the more tactical get-it-done checklists.

Here is product discovery at the highest level, summed up in two bullet points.

  • Living in the Problem Space: Asking good questions.
  • Living in the Solution Space: Coming up with answers that are: 1) viable; with market demand via value propositions(s), and 2) feasible; technically and operationally producible within some defined financial criteria, as well as compliant with any regulatory issues.

That’s it! Everything that follows are the details.

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Product Discovery – Part 1 – Beyond the Checklist

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Some of the best products happened through one of two means; the first is the traditional market research, deep study and so on. The other is practically by accident; often the flash of inspiration entrepreneurial route. Everything else is somewhere in the middle. This series is about how we can maybe do better in either case.

I’m going to handle this topic in two parts. This first is just a story illustrating the value we can learn by going deep into the weeds and emphasizes the value of deep discovery; in this case for a B2B product. Why bother? Because I think otherwise we may be missing things. After that, in a separate article, we’ll run through the more basic discovery checklists.

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Product Management & Sales – BFFs?

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TL;DR: A strong product and sales relationship is crucial for any company’s success. Ideally, these teams should work together seamlessly with a shared goal and a collaborative spirit. However, tension can sometimes arise, as with any other working relationship. But if you’re in product management and don’t see the sales team as a valuable partner, it’s time to reframe how you view this critical collaboration.

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Customer Journey Map Template

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While working on a new component of a project, I had occasion to build out a Customer Journey Map. Even though I’ve done this several times before, I’d kind of just cobbled together a map using Omnigraffle or LucidChart or some other drawing program. But this time I had to do a few of them and wanted a more common format template. What I found was a ton of examples in image search, but very few usable editable templates. (There were a few behind some paywalls and seemingly sketchy download requirements, but not much else.)

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Why Do Customers Switch? How to keep from being just a Satisficer?

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Do your customers really love you or your products and services? Maybe they do. Then again, maybe you’re just a necessarily evil. In this case, they feel more like a hostage than a customer and will bail out the moment they get the opportunity. So which is it? Are your customers experiencing loyalty to you? Or just Learned Helplessness? Do you have a bright future delighting or at least satisfying your customers? Or are you just a sunk cost fallacy waiting to be realized? (I’ll explain the sunk cost issue in a moment or two.)

During the evolution of COVID-19, a lot of marketplace issues have emerged. All manner of experts from varying business categories will be studying the effects for years. But from the perspective of this topic of product switching, we’re continuing though a period when consumers are choosing to, (or have been forced to), re-evaluate product and service choices. This has sometimes been due to simple availability, but potentially also affordability. People have also had several changing or new needs. Some will be temporary, others more permanent; from home office setup, through childcare, and the list goes on and on. All this change has has dumped a variety of seemingly stable brands in a big blender where all of a sudden, they’re up for review. And if you don’t have a customer retention strategy, even if you’re company can survive a brand switch here or there, you’re likely going to leave a lot of money on the table. [Read more…]

The NFL Marketing Problem – Again

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Empty Football StadiumMaybe enough digital ink has been spilled already, but here’s the thing… something else showed up in my newsfeed recently that made me think, “You’re kidding, right? No one’s buying this.” (It was the AdAge Article: Out-of-Home Viewing Erased the NFL’s Ratings Deficit Last Season.) As product people, some of us focus on features, functions, benefits. And others on marketing. However, all of us should at least be interested in marketing and what the NFL faces now is a really interesting marketing business case. Whatever your level of interest in football might be, or your belief in some of the league’s issues, the legal monopoly that is the NFL has massive economic impact. While there’s some argument as to whether a stadium or Super Bowl has net positive impact on a city, (when you add in taxpayer subsidized stadium builds, etc.), football nevertheless generates massive economic activity overall. As a result, the challenges the marketplace faces should be of interest from a marketing perspective.

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Event Web Sites & Postings – Best Practices

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Event Management GraphicPlanning an Event? Great. I’m sorry to say I can’t help you much with the event itself. What I perhaps can help you with is avoiding some major mistakes with your online presence. During a recent project, I’ve had occasion to look at a lot of events sites. And I’ve come to realize that there’s way too many folks out there damaging their prospects. Starting with the obvious; make sure to communicate the What/When/Where asap! Amazingly, many just don’t do this. [Read more…]

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