Studies generated by Google AI have not yet changed the way Internet users employ the results

Google announced the launch of IA previewsHis generative research function powered by artificial intelligence, in May 2024.

Initially called IA IA Previews generative studies, it collects and summarizes information from various websites.

AI answers are displayed at the top of the page, which gives them immediate visibility. The goal is to improve the user’s experience by offering a more direct method of access to information, while guaranteeing the importance of research results.

Initially reserved for the United States, this functionality was gradually implemented all over the world. AI preview are now offered in over 100 countriesincluding Canada.

In the context of fierce competition between various research engines with AI, Google makes a significant effort thanks to the announcement of IA. The goal is to take advantage of the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence technology and answer Searchgpt d’Epenai and in Deep Search de Microsoft Bingdriven by OpenAi Chatgpt.

At the same time, conversation works such as chatgpt, Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini are still arousing the interest of Internet users around the world. The Google investment in artificial intelligence is necessary to let him stay in the race with other internet giants.

AI supported research generates worries

Companies, website managers and advertisers online He expressed his fears As for the implementation of IA previews.

The logs of this function are afraid that it will reduce traffic on their websites, if users rely too much on IA RChotses and ignore the links displayed in the search results.

The paid advertisement and the content commanded play a key role in the revenues of companies and websites. If traffic on websites falls, companies will probably invest in this advertising format, which can be disturbed by the online advertising sector, Rated for a few billion dollars.

To better understand this phenomenon, we have conducted a study au Tech3Lab with Hec Montreal To compare the influence of AI generative research functions, such as IA’s view, on the perception and behavior of Internet users compared to ordinary online research.

Behavior and perception

We have developed four research scenarios on Google, with or without the employ of artificial intelligence. Two scenarios supported by artificial intelligence contained a review generated by AI at the top of the search results, while the other two consisted of classic experience on Google.

For each pair of scenarios, participants conducted two studies: one for information purposes and the other related to the purchase of the product. During each task, we analyzed the behavior of Internet users in terms of clicks (number of clicks), cognitive load (mental effort required to process information) ET Visual attention.

We used Pupillometry (Measurement of the student’s size and response) and the screen recording was analyzed to follow these settings. After each task, the participants fulfilled the questionnaires to describe their perception.

This experimental approach allowed us to achieve two goals. First of all, we have determined to what extent inspections generated by artificial intelligence in research results affect the perception of the importance, usefulness and interest in the results.

Secondly, we noticed whether these genetic AI summaries have significantly modified users’ behavior in terms of the number of clicks on the links appearing in the search results. We were able to learn about the potential impact of AI generative summaries on normal research.

What did we discover?

The results of our study show that the preview generated by AI does not have a real impact on the perception of importance and usability or satisfaction with the results of the research. It also has no real impact on the speed of clicking on the links in the test results.

The presence of IA previews did not significantly reduce the interaction with a time-honored list of pages suggested by Google. Although this observation indicates that the IA preview would not immediately or significantly change the traffic on websites, it is significant to remember that the employ of Internet users can evolve because they will learn about this recent functionality.

Competition between online research market leaders are probably only intensifying. So at the beginning of the month Google launched New function called “mode Ia”which allows some users to obtain additional results generated by artificial intelligence.

Companies such as Google and Microsoft will continue to fight for market dominance. Their goal: offering Internet users more and more captivating and enriching research experience.

Scientists Alexander J. Karran, Thadde Rolon-Merette, Eugene Yuzan Guo, Fabien Pepper and Mehdi Benborusta co-author of this article.