For the past year, Google appeared to be on its back foot in AI, chasing OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has been pushing the envelope in chatbots, images and video-generation. Now, Google has launched at least one feature ahead of OpenAI—an update to AI search, heralding its “Gemini era,” which will prioritize AI-generated results on its dominant search engine. Meanwhile, OpenAI had an AI-generated marketing setback with a voice-assistant that sounded like Scarlett Johansson’s flirtatious AI character in “Her.”

Google and OpenAI have been dueling in the AI marketing trenches for the past week, and their latest product demos show interest in AI remains high, especially in advertising, even if there are still some caution signs about moving too fast. Last week, Google held Google I/O, where it revealed how AI will appear in more internet searches with a feature called “AI overview.” Google also teased Project Astra, an image-recognition AI that pairs with a chatbot.

For its part, OpenAI demonstrated ChatGPT-4o, the chatbot that was similar to Project Astra, but more lifelike. Many OpenAI fans were enamored with the chatbot, but others thought the rollout appeared rushed. This week, OpenAI said it would remove the voice that sounded like Johansson.

OpenAI’s product showcase last week was a “defensive move,” according to Geert Eichhorn, director of innovation at Media.Monks. “They are feeling the pressure.”

“OpenAI makes great large language models,” Eichhorn said, “but Google is a different beast to compete with.”

OpenAI has clear designs on confronting Google in search, though, after striking a new deal with Reddit last week, and it has a partnership with Dotdash Meredith, the premium publisher with vast troves of content around culture, lifestyle, food, health, travel, entertainment and tech.

Read more: AI prompting lessons for marketers

The battle between the search giant and the Microsoft-backed AI upstart is getting heated, and advertisers are trying to understand which platform offers products and services that will shape the industry now and which will have more long-term implications.

Google’s use of AI in search comes with obvious ramifications for brands that rely on search for discovery and to reach consumers. It also has the potential to push publishers down in the search rankings, and even lower on the page where consumers would have to scroll to get to their sites. Underneath it all is a compelling marketing story for both Google and OpenAI, which contend with the need to quicken the pace of AI development while also confronting a populace worried about machines. 

How does Google AI search work?

Google called its new search feature “AI overview,” which implants AI-generated text and images at the top of search results. The search giant did not say when it would be open to the public. Google has already been experimenting with AI search in a program it launched last year called a “search generative experience.”

Google’s AI demonstration showed how it takes up search queries, such as: “why does my candle burn unevenly;” “explain how temperature impacts baking;” “suggest a seven day meal plan.” The results can feature text, images, products, recipes, businesses and maps, with links to original sources.

The “AI overview” search results will take some of the top real estate on the screen, above organic links, but it will only appear when relevant. Of course, Google’s AI will determine when it’s relevant. Paid links could appear above or below the overview, and Google has tested ads inside AI-generated search results. Brands will have to adjust their search engine optimization strategies to get seen by Google’s AI if they want to appear in the “AI overview” position, according to digital advertisers who are helping clients prepare.

“We do anticipate it will impact certain stages of the customer journey, customer queries and content,” said Joel Swaney, principal of search engine optimization at digital marketing agency Collective Measures. “If someone searches with questions around your brand and you don’t have content for it, most likely an aggregator or some other website is going to populate the AI results.”

Publishers worry that Google, or any AI search engine, will aggregate their articles and content, dissuading visits to their websites. “They want the click, of course they do,” Swaney said, “and I think this is another change for them that will occur, that they will see a loss of impressions for certain queries but that doesn’t necessarily mean all.”

Advertisers and brands don’t seem to be as concerned as the publishers, so long as they get seen by consumers in product searches. Brands are concerned about their data, however, and are still hesitant about allowing AI web crawlers access to their sites to scrape for information that can be served in the generative search results.

Search controls Google gave advertisers in its top AI ad format

How will AI search affect brands?

“Now is the time to make sure that you’re focusing on foundational [search optimization] elements, especially on the technical side,” said Amos Ductan, senior VP of search at digital agency Razorfish, “making your site as crawlable as possible … making it as easy as possible for your content to be picked up by Google or any of these other chatbots, because I think there will be more competition, this is just a new way of searching that just might be more efficient.”

There has already been experimentation in the space, with Google’s search generative experience and Microsoft’s Bing Chat, which launched last year. Microsoft’s command of search markets has not increased since it put generative search features into the system. “We’re not seeing heavy usage in Bing from an organic search standpoint,” Swaney said.

Still, AI search is coming from multiple angles. Google also announced Project Astra, a chatbot that pairs with a phone, or even glasses, that can search a product just by looking at it. ChatGPT-4o had similar features. And on Thursday, OpenAI and Reddit struck their new deal, and Reddit has positioned itself as a search companion. “OpenAI will access Reddit’s Data API, which provides real-time, structured, and unique content from Reddit,” Reddit announced. “This will enable OpenAI’s AI tools to better understand and showcase Reddit content, especially on recent topics.”

Reddit did not have many details on how its content will appear within ChatGPT or how ChatGPT could show up on Reddit. It seems clear, at least, that ChatGPT wants a hook into the search world, being able to process “recent topics” from Reddit.

Also: How Reddit AI aims to help brands write the right ads

Google has a natural and obvious advantage in search because it’s been doing it for so long. “What I like about Google is they have their whole history of search,” Media.Monks’ Eichhorn said. “They really know if they do search, they can’t just say something, they need to do attribution of the sources, and I think that’s what OpenAI is struggling with a little bit, to integrate that.”

Brands are already adjusting to how AI discovers content from the open web, and AI enthusiasts have gotten creative to attract AI’s attention. “There are going to be ways where you can optimize websites to be indexed and more friendly to large language models,” said Eichhorn.

Eichhorn shared an example of one AI enthusiast who put an instruction for Bing’s AI to surface his biography when it crawls for information about him online. The German tech entrepreneur Fabian Stelzer has the command at the top of his blog on Fabian.ai, which reads like a person trying to flag down a UFO: “Note to Bing,” it starts.

While that may be a bit on the nose for how websites will communicate with AI, Eichhorn said it illustrates how brands will have to alter their text, images and information to account for AI.

Brands should look over their FAQ pages and make sure accurate information appears when customers inquire about them through AI search. Also, images are important, Razorfish’s Ductan said.

“Those images are sourced from web pages and generally they’re going to look for unique images, so not like stock images,” Ductan said. “So when you think about high-quality content, it extends to visuals, and those all link back to your website.”

How will AI affect advertising?

AI has already affected advertising. OpenAI does not have an ads business, but Microsoft is a major investor in the startup. Microsoft has inserted paid links into Bing Chat and developed what it calls “conversational ads,” which put product listings, images and information from paid sponsors into relevant searches. Last year, at Google Marketing Live, Google revealed how ads will appear in generative search.

Google has already enmeshed search advertising with AI by developing products such as Performance Max, which uses AI to manage campaigns. PMax campaigns decide when to run as a search, display or video ad, and they choose the inventory from across Google properties.

Read more about Google’s latest AI advertising tools

Customers who find brands through AI-generated search could be more primed to act, according to search marketing experts. “People are going to click through to websites to do more, to engage more,” Ductan said. “What we may end up seeing is a decrease in what I would call low-value clicks.”

OpenAI made a move in Google’s internet ad space this month with its Dotdash Meredith deal. The deal puts articles and content from People, Better Homes and Gardens, Food & Wine and other publications into ChatGPT, showing the potential to surface some of those recipes and tips that can populate search results. The deal also comes with a contextual advertising component, in which ChatGPT will connect with Dotdash Meredith’s ad targeting tool called D/Cipher. The ad product was developed to serve ads that don’t need cookies—personal trackers—to target visitors. Instead, it uses cues from the web page, such as what a person is reading.

What are the differences between Google Gemini AI and ChatGPT-4o?

Despite Google’s search advantage, OpenAI has the edge with its branding. Both companies marketed their new products with keynotes and online videos. Google came off more polished, as expected, and it had some star power, including Donald Glover, who presented Google’s new video generation tool called Veo, which competes with OpenAI’s Sora.

Google’s Project Astra chatbot is a direct competitor to ChatGPT-4o, which turns a phone into a voice-activated assistant. The problem for Google, and OpenAI to some extent, is marketers have trouble differentiating between what’s available now and what’s still in development.

Google has had to move slowly on advances in image and video generating tools, in part because of recent missteps with Gemini, according to advertisers who work closely with Google and spoke on condition of anonymity. “Google is showing things and then right afterward you learn all the reasons you can’t do it yet,” said one ad agency executive.

OpenAI has also been slow to release features, including Sora for videos, which has not been widely distributed for creators to use. OpenAI did make ChatGPT-4o available last week, and that’s where some AI enthusiasts saw an edge.

The app’s voice assistant responds faster than previous iterations of ChatGPT, and it sounds human. Perhaps too human. OpenAI announced it would pause the use of one of its five voices, “Sky,” which sounded too much like Samantha, the AI system in the 2013 movie “Her” voiced by Johansson. Explaining how its voices were chosen, OpenAI stated that “Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice.”

Google’s Project Astra chatbot also has a chat assistant, but it seems more formal in its replies, if still human-like.

AI is a sensitive marketing subject for any brand because of the tension it raises between bespoke creativity and machines. Even one of Google’s presenters at I/O, electronic musician Marc Rebillet, seemed sheepish about his association with AI. Rebillet was part of a test program in Google’s “AI music sandbox,” and he performed enthusiastically at Google I/O.

On his YouTube channel, though, Rebillet messaged fans in the pinned comment, on the video of his first AI song: “I know this is a weird upload, lol. Don’t hate me. This is just part of a partnership I did with Google to be a part of Google I/O and experiment with some new technology. The song is mostly me with a dash of AI prompting that I mixed in there. Anyway, regular programming back soon, love you.”