AI is changing how businesses engage with customers, impacting website traffic and online strategies. Photo / Getty Images
By Ke-Xin Li of RNZ
As artificial intelligence changes how we find information, New Zealand businesses are feeling the impact.
Over the past 20 years, search engines like Google replaced the Yellow Pages and changed the way information and services are found.
But artificial intelligence (AI) overviews and chatbots are now ready to answer anything from “best time to travel to Japan” to “good local plumber”.
To Kiwi businesses, the change has not always been positive.
Greg Whitham, general manager for market engagement at Datacom, has decades of experience in digital communication.
Whitham has watched the online presence of companies growing from a minor part of its strategy to something critical in capturing customers, and he is also familiar with how tech evolutions can affect businesses.
“We’ve definitely seen a dip in traffic coming on to our site, and I would imagine that there would be very few businesses or brands out there that haven’t sort of seen a significant drop off in traffic coming all the way through to their website.”
Whitham said the company’s website traffic changed dramatically this year and they quickly adjusted to get AI’s attention.
“We’d certainly also seen an uplift in what we call zero-click impressions, so people were still seeing our content, but they were seeing it as it was being presented back to them by their AI agents. The new focus is almost less around servicing the customer and servicing the customer’s agents because it’s the customer’s agents that are effectively going to be presenting your brand, presenting your content back to what will hopefully become your end customer.”
Grant Johnson, chief executive of website company Rocketspark, said traffic from ChatGPT more than tripled this year.
It was growth that corresponded to the shift in how people seek information.
Johnson said in the age of AI-driven searches, online reputation was more important than just having the right keywords to get into Google’s top search results.
“What the LLMs [the large language models behind AI] are doing is they’re aggregating from so many different sources to build up a picture about you. It’s almost like, what’s your online reputation? Are you inviting your customers to leave reviews? Do you just provide a great service and a great product?”
Johnson said reviews and recommendations in online discussions were playing an important role in AI-generated answers.
“It seems platforms like Reddit get referenced quite a bit in the AI summaries. So in some ways, I feel like it’s levelling the playing field. If you’re a good business, it’s like the cream rises to the top.”
MoneyHub head of research Chris Walsh said his site was benefiting from artificial intelligence, as click rates grew.
“I don’t think this is taking anything away from us. I see the percentage month-on-month grow. But also, I’d say they’re quality visitors. I mean, they’ve gone to the AI, they’re engaged and now they want to learn more and they’re probably going to spend about 10 minutes on our website.”
In September, links from AI tools sent more than 3000 visitors to the MoneyHub site – about 1% of its total traffic.
Walsh said while the percentage was low, the growth was promising.
Bret Gower, director of law firm Smith and Partners, said it was working to be quoted in the AI overview when people ask Google a legal question.
“We’ve done our own research into how Google’s AI overview references legal questions and I’ve seen evidence of it citing our articles as a source of the basis of their answer. So I think that’s what we’re expecting. We’re going to continue to be doing it, hoping to be the cited source so that those clients that need a fact-specific answer or some certainty or even representation, they will be coming through to us as the provider of their answers in the first instance.”
Some other uses of AI were also causing other problems for businesses such as travel agents.
Travel Agents Association New Zealand chief executive Julie White said AI-generated travel plans or recommendations could ruin holidays.
“Just make sure you are well-informed and double-check and re-check the information that you’re getting [from AI] is correct. The White Lotus [TV series] is a great example of people getting caught out booking through an AI. So they travel all the way to Thailand, they turn up for this magical experience to live the White Lotus experience, only to find out that the accommodation doesn’t even exist.”
And as Gower said, the trend towards AI DIY solutions was also causing headaches for lawyers.
“Anecdotally, we’re seeing a lot of clients coming to us with their own AI generated answers, I suppose in the same way that doctors were facing the Dr Google situation where the clients are turning up with a prior assessment of what their situation is.
“It’s making the work of advising clients more complicated because rather than them coming to us with an outline of what they think their issue is, they’re quite often coming to us now with an outline of what they think the solution is going to be as well. It’s interesting times.”
– RNZ