Just as I find myself skipping LinkedIn posts with telltale AI cadence, so Google’s skipping content that’s too AI dependent.
There’s still definitely a case for using AI to help produce content – especially if you’re working in your second language, struggle with dyslexia, or have other genuine reasons to use it to tidy up messy copy with solid substance behind it.
But now content is a commodity, it has to have very clear value for Google – or humans – to spend time with. (Why the hell would I care to see a result spat out by your prompt when I can write my own, and produce something far more relevant to my specific needs and interests?)
And the more of it you produce at ever greater speed, the more obvious it is that what you’re offering is a manufactured good, not something that’s been crafted with care and attention by a skilled artisan who really knows their stuff.
– Google’s not stupid
– Neither are the other AI search tools
– Nor are your human audiences
You may fool some of them at first, but it won’t last – and you may permanently lose their trust for having even tried.
This has long been obviously the way this was going to go – I’ve been arguing as much for 3+ years now – but finally we’re starting to get more data to back up what common sense was suggesting was likely from the moment GenAI became competent at scale.