Is Search Really the Future of AI?

Summary

Paul and Rich explore how AI is reshaping the world of search, from Google’s traditional model to the new concept of GEO — Generative Engine Optimization. They start by explaining the foundational contract of the commercial web: you create content, Google indexes it, people search and find you, and an advertising ecosystem extracts value from that intent. A billion people are now using AI regularly, getting their answers from chatbots instead of clicking through to websites, and that breaks the entire economic model.

The hosts compare three AI-powered browsers (DIA, Perplexity’s Comet, and Google’s AI mode) and find that all produce decent LLM-generated summaries. Rich makes the crucial point that most people never change their default tools — whoever controls the box on the phone controls the future. Google, with Android and Chrome running on billions of devices, has the inside track. They discuss practical GEO strategies like creating an llms.txt file (similar to robots.txt) and publishing structured linked data. The episode closes with a surprising return to an old idea: the semantic web and structured data, which turns out to be exactly what LLMs need to produce accurate results.

Highlights

”There Is No AI Without the Web”

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“There is no AI without the web. The web tends to be produced by very large organizations putting all their stuff to help everyone else work with them. The appetite for more knowledge is so strong for AI companies that they want to take in everything.” — Rich Zottoli, 13:00

”Most People Don’t Change What They Do”

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“Most people don’t change what they do. My mom is still typing in Google. She’s not hankering to get ChatGPT. AOL dialup ended like six months ago. There was still tens of millions of dollars a year on AOL dialup. Because it worked.” — Rich Zottoli, 18:00

”A Really Excellent Web Summarizer”

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“A good way to look at AI in this context is that if you really use it, it’s essentially a really excellent web summarizer. It’s a UX innovation to a large extent.” — Rich Zottoli, 14:30

”Google Is Worth More Than All the Real Estate in New York City”

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“All five boroughs of New York City real estate is worth somewhere between one and two trillion dollars. Google is worth more. So is Apple. When you think about them giving up territory, that’s like saying, ‘Hey, New York City, why don’t you give up Central Park and everything south?’” — Rich Zottoli, 16:30

”The Buffet Doesn’t Constantly Refill”

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“The buffet doesn’t constantly refill. AI took off because the web was so rich, but we still have to keep replenishing the content on the web. You got to come out, you got to put the bacon bits and the peas in.” — Paul Ford, 30:00

Key Points

• GEO introduction (0:15) - Paul introduces GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) as a new concept replacing SEO
• Vietnamese restaurant example (1:30) - They walk through the foundational web contract using a Vietnamese restaurant in Brooklyn as example
• Google’s ad model (3:00) - Intent fuels economies; Google put itself in the middle between search intent and ad dollars
• A billion people using AI (1:00) - A billion people are using AI on the regular, getting answers directly from chatbots
• Reddit’s intent model (4:30) - Reddit’s communities generate valuable opinionated content; they’re now licensing data to AI companies
• Faster than social and mobile (6:00) - AI adoption is faster and more disruptive than both the social and mobile revolutions
• AI speaks with authority but is often wrong (7:00) - “We’re going to be saying that for the rest of our lives” — the fundamental AI trust problem
• SEO as background radiation (8:00) - SEO has been background radiation for 20+ years in web work; legit practitioners focus on quality and findability
• AI browsers (9:30) - DIA and Perplexity’s Comet both use AI prompts as their homepage instead of traditional search
• No AI without the web (13:00) - AI companies need the web’s content; without it, LLMs have nothing to offer
• Reddit licensing data (13:30) - Reddit charges for access to its comments; licensing to OpenAI but suing Anthropic
• No ad impressions when AI summarizes (14:00) - When AI reads and summarizes web content, no one gets ad revenue — the entire publishing model breaks
• Default controls destiny (16:00) - Most people use whatever box came with their phone; only Apple, Google, and Microsoft can claim that territory
• Google vs. NYC real estate (16:30) - Google and Apple are each worth more than all real estate in NYC’s five boroughs
• AOL dialup still made millions (18:00) - AOL dialup ended recently; tens of millions of dollars a year because people embed their behaviors
• Google’s AI mode still learning (20:00) - Google AI search threw up a Spike Lee Malcolm X photo next to the Aboard podcast description
• llms.txt file (27:00) - Like robots.txt but for LLMs; structured markdown telling AI what you want it to know about you
• Semantic web returns (28:00) - Linked data structures and typed objects are back; the old dream of the semantic web is what LLMs actually need
• Clarity over presentation (30:00) - The web needs to shift from optimizing for human visual consumption to clear machine-readable representation

Mentions

Companies

• Google (1:30) - Central subject; controls search, Chrome, Android; has 84% of search market
• Aboard (0:10) - Hosts’ company; used as test case for AI search comparison
• Reddit (4:30) - Community-driven content; licensing data to OpenAI, suing Anthropic
• Perplexity (9:30) - AI search company; released Comet browser; has a shopping angle
• The Browser Company (9:30) - Makes DIA browser with AI homepage
• OpenAI (6:00) - AI company; licensing Reddit data
• Anthropic (9:30) - AI company making Claude; being sued by Reddit
• Apple (16:00) - Controls iOS and Safari defaults
• Microsoft (16:00) - Controls Windows defaults
• New York Times (13:30) - Suing OpenAI for scraping their content
• Samsung (17:00) - Modifies Android for their phones
• LexisNexis (14:00) - One of many publishers licensing content to AI companies
• AOL (18:00) - Dialup recently ended; made millions until the end because users don’t change
• Duck Duck Go (19:00) - Didn’t eat Google’s lunch; ChatGPT probably won’t either

Products & Technologies

• SEO (8:00) - Search Engine Optimization; 20+ year old practice now being supplemented by GEO
• GEO (9:00) - Generative Engine Optimization; new discipline for optimizing content for AI systems
• DIA browser (9:30) - AI-native browser by The Browser Company
• Comet browser (9:30) - Perplexity’s AI-native browser
• Google Veo (20:30) - Google’s video generation tool; described as incredible
• Nano Banana (20:30) - Google’s image generation tool; extremely good
• Chromium (17:00) - Open source browser codebase by Google; embedded in Android ecosystem
• Android (16:30) - Most popular mobile platform; approaches free; Google controls the default search
• llms.txt (27:00) - New file format like robots.txt but for LLM consumption

People

• Kelsey Lebert (24:00) - Author of GEO article on Search Engine Land
• Karen Burns (27:00) - Author of “GEO Explained in 5 Minutes” on Storyblock
• Sam Altman (16:00) - Wants to run the world; will make 50 different plays to own everything

Surprising Quotes

“CAC is bad. ARPU — average revenue per user. GEO, which means like 75 other things including geography, but no, here we are. Welcome to the rest of your life.” — Rich Zottoli, 9:00

“If the box that you type into is the one that came with your phone when you took it out of the nice packaging, that is the box you will use forever.” — Rich Zottoli, 16:00

“The web is a place where very large organizations put all their stuff to help everyone else work with them. JP Morgan has many thousands of web pages. I’m sure they’re all really good too.” — Paul Ford, 13:00

“AI took off because the web was so rich, but we still have to keep replenishing the content. You got to come out, you got to put the bacon bits and the peas in. The buffet doesn’t constantly refill.” — Paul Ford, 30:00

Transcript

0:00 Hi, I’m Paul Ford. And I’m Rich Zottoli. And this is the Aboard podcast. The podcast about how AI is changing the world of software for better or for worse, sometimes for better. It’s brought to you by Aboard, aboard.com. Rich, have you ever heard the letters GEO before? No. Exactly. Let’s get into it.

0:50 We should note we’re both wearing blue shirts. There is a situation on the internet right now. You got a billion people give or take using AI on the regular. That’s a large number of people. Like more than I’ve ever met.

1:30 Let’s talk about how it used to work. You’re a Vietnamese restaurant in Brooklyn, zip code 11215. You put up a nice website with your menu, links to Resy, pictures of the food, about us, location. What is the implied transaction you’re going to have with Google? 95% of the time people are going to search on Google to find you. Google has laid out ground rules on how to structure your site so it can index you and when someone types “Vietnamese near me 11215,” you hope your site shows up high.

3:00 This is the foundational contract of the commercial web. It’s not a legal contract but it’s really understood. That’s how Google became a behemoth — it became an intermediary to getting information. Google captured intent. Intent fuels economies. They put themselves in the middle. That Vietnamese restaurant could buy an ad. Not only that, they could buy an ad when you search for their competitor down the street. You search for Pipedrive and Salesforce comes up.

4:30 Reddit is interesting — it has search but you’re not as intent-driven. There is intent in communities. Those communities generate a lot of good opinionated content about products. Basically the model has been: make a lot of content, someone makes it, it goes on the web, it’s supposed to be useful, and there’s an advertising ecosystem built on top. Google’s free. Reddit’s free. They situated themselves inside all information travel on the internet.

6:00 Then AI showed up in the form of ChatGPT. What’s taken hold is probably one of the fastest growing disruptive use patterns in technology. It’s faster and more disruptive than social was. And social and mobile were the two where you were like, wow, that changed the world really quick. People are getting their answers from AI. It’s a billion people.

7:00 It speaks with authority and confidence. It is often wrong. It is shocking how often it is wrong. And if you call it out, it’ll apologize for being wrong. We’re going to be saying that for the rest of our lives.

8:00 The whole space of SEO — Search Engine Optimization. It has been kind of background radiation in your industry. The legit practitioners are like: here’s how to organize your content, you need a good site map, break content up into blocks. It can be a little gross to feel like you’re writing for the algorithm, but it tends to work because the focus is on quality and findability.

9:30 A huge number of people are now migrating to other ways of getting answers which don’t have obvious ad placements. There’s ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude. GEO — Generative Engine Optimization instead of Search Engine Optimization. Marketers came up with the acronym. CAC, ARPU — it’s rough. GEO means 75 other things including geography. Welcome to the rest of your life.

10:30 There’s DIA, a web browser with AI tooling built in by the Browser Company. There’s Perplexity’s Comet. You go in and the homepage is just a prompt. That’s the new homepage — not a search bar but an interaction with an LLM.

13:00 Most general purpose uses of AI occur because AI ingested the web. There is no AI without the web. The web tends to be produced by very large organizations. JP Morgan has many thousands of web pages. AI companies want everything — all the books, all the communication. The New York Times is suing OpenAI. Reddit is licensing to OpenAI but suing Anthropic.

14:00 When AI reads content and summarizes it — no ad impressions today. The whole ecosystem of Google in the middle and everybody getting a couple pennies — that’s gone. The AI has no opinion on the ads. It just wants the text.

14:30 If you really use AI, it’s essentially a really excellent web summarizer. It’s a UX innovation. If someone said, “What are the five Scorsese movies I should watch?” I could go do that work, read pages, go to Rotten Tomatoes. You’d probably be happier if you did the work. You’d stumble on things you didn’t expect. But a billion people love typing into a box and getting the answer with a little commentary sprinkled in.

16:00 As technologists, we tend to overlook the importance of the default state. If the box you type into is the one that came with your phone, that is the box you will use forever. The only people who can claim the box are Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Sam Altman wants to run the world — he’ll make 50 different plays. But those platforms are not going to give up a pixel of territory without a brutal fight.

16:30 What is the most popular mobile phone platform? Android, far and away. It approaches free. Google embeds itself in the foundational systems. When you hit the side button on an LG phone running Android, you’re searching Google. All five boroughs of NYC real estate is worth between one and two trillion dollars. Google is worth more. So is Apple. When you think about them giving up territory, it’s like saying “Hey NYC, give up Central Park and everything south.”

18:00 Most people don’t change what they do. My mom is still typing in Google. AOL dialup ended like six months ago. Still tens of millions a year because it worked. People embed their behaviors and it takes a really long time to change.

20:00 I asked Google AI mode about the Aboard podcast. It did pretty good except it threw up a picture of Spike Lee’s Malcolm X next to the podcast. Still figuring stuff out. But the summaries are all LLM summaries. I just searched for the Aboard podcast and Google made a nice summary. So did the other two browsers. No real ads on the page.

21:00 For platforms that capture behavior — they wait on the money. Google took off and it was years before search ads showed up. Once you have filed this tool in your long-term memory, figuring out where to grab pennies isn’t hard. Google knows that because they did it once before.

24:00 Google still has 84% of the market. Duck Duck Go didn’t eat their lunch. ChatGPT probably won’t either. It’ll nibble, snatch something off the plate. Most of the world is just doing what they used to do.

27:00 Here’s how you implement GEO. First, write an llms.txt file, which is like robots.txt. It’s just text — structured markdown. “Hey, my restaurant’s open these hours.” It absorbs it in its LLM way. And then you need linked data structures. There was this idea of a semantic web where everything would be linked and classified by type. That didn’t really happen, but it kind of did.

28:00 The web is optimized for human consumption, not machine consumption. Google got really good at parsing human output. But now AI is implying that presentation is peeled away — it just reads it and puts it in a couple paragraphs. If you make nice individual crisp data objects and publish them, the more likely you are to be absorbed into the larger context and come back out through the LLM.

30:00 The buffet doesn’t constantly refill. AI took off because the web was so rich, but we still have to keep replenishing the content. It’s in the best interest of LLMs and Google to push people back to the web. I think eventually the blue link will make its way back. A web focused on clarity of presentation — that’s actually a positive thing. Restaurants have the worst web pages. The PDF menu is still a thing.

33:00 The web is a second-class citizen in the current context. I have mixed feelings about that. I’ve said probably once every month for the last 15 years — we need to find what’s going on underneath. There are patterns for working with this stuff. I just wrote a newsletter article about what guardrails really means. This is not going to be AGI. This is a new kind of technology and it’s going to have to fit in with all the other technologies. That’s the work of the next decade and I actually think that’s exciting, good, interesting work. Check out aboard.com.