Amazon enters the AI ​​chatbot fray as Google search evolves again

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Deploy the bot

Good boy, Rufus. Nice deal!

This is one way to say hello to Amazon's new built-in AI chatbot, “Rufus,” available to US customers on the Amazon-owned app, Bloomberg reports.

Amazon's Rufus is another example of a large tech company embedding AI chatbots directly into its consumer-facing platforms.

But Rufus shows the extent to which these omniscient, generative AI services are in fact limited by the platform itself.

For example, Meta AI is good at planning meetings and scanning and setting messages. What Meta AI knows is based on people's network of connections and actions on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Rufus is a shopping assistant. When Google Bard gets tricked, it's often thwarted by search engine crawlers. For example, when Google AI suggested putting glue in pizza crust, it was because Google's crawlers found a comment on Reddit.

Grok, Twitter's version of an AI bot, replies in a decidedly gendered tone: a young, very online man of the type who looks up to Elon Musk.

So these are the things they eat.

An endless quest

Antitrust issues aside, Google has faced serious backlash over monetizing its search engine, and the degradation of Google search is an anecdotal event that affects society as a whole.

Snowflake's new CEO founded his previous startup, Neeva, on the belief that Google had lost its way as paid media took over organic search results.

But the train never stops.

Google's latest trick is to place search ads just below featured snippets. Snippets are organic: Wikipedia-style text and bullet points that appear at the top of search results, or excerpts taken from press releases or reputable sites that provide authoritative answers to queries.

Ads can be standard text-based sponsored links or shopping carousels of sponsored product links.

Ads are labeled but intermingled amongst the organic content set.

Ginny Marvin, a Google Ads liaison, confirmed in a tweet that these units are part of the ongoing evolution of dynamic ad placements in search, and that the company plans to continue experimenting with them going forward,” according to Search Engine Roundtable.

These ads complicate Google's selling of top ads: Currently, self-declared top ads can appear lower than organic featured snippets, sponsored units, and organic search results.

But those clicks are worth it.

Political evangelism

Last month's presidential debate not only stoked bipartisan calls for President Biden to drop out of the race, it also potentially changed the trajectory of political advertising between now and November, Ad Age reported. Democrats have pledged to spend $300 million on advertising in the 2024 elections, half of which will take place after Labor Day.

First, both candidates are facing scandals that could have very different effects on potential advertising. Donald Trump was convicted in 2016 of falsifying business records to hide payments to adult film stars. But the Trump campaign has had a fundraising wave since the verdict; donations to his campaign have reportedly dried up since Biden's presidential debate. The Biden campaign also announced it would pump an additional $50 million into damage control and to reset ad buys in battleground states following calls to drop out of the race.

Large advertising budgets will be spent on the presidential election, and state-level campaigning in battleground states may also become more active. A large advertising budget will also attract more attention to other Democratic candidates. However, the presidential election comes first. For example, it will make a big difference whether the Biden campaign focuses on what is called the Blue Wall. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan are the three most contested states. However, Nevada and Arizona are battleground states, and this year's Senate elections are likely to flip from Democrats to Republicans.

But wait, there's more!

Companies seem determined to make everything a retail media network. How did this happen? [Digiday]

The man behind the Sports Illustrated and USA Today AI gaffes has a long history of littering the internet with trash. [The Verge]

Elon Musk's X criticised by EU for violating digital content law. [WSJ]

Why women are disappearing from the tech industry. [The Information]

You're Hired!

Olaplex has appointed former Marc Jacobs chief marketing officer Katie Gorman as its CMO. [WSJ]

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