Ernesto, welcome. Ernesto, how is the increasing use of
GenAI-generated chatbots and search engines affecting
consumer behavior?
It's affecting it in a dramatic way.
The example I like to use is how now consumers are going on the
chatbots, and they're getting the answer to the question
there. And they don't need to leave that environment to do
what they need to do.
Whether that's more information—they can ask another
question—or whether that's making a purchase, right?
In future, they will be able to do all of that on the chatbot.
So one of the implications of that is going to be for
publishers,
if these consumers are not going on their website, how they're
going to serve ads.
So that's going to dramatically change the advertising world.
Let's explore that a little bit more—the
impact that all this will have on brands, particularly in the
advertising space.
So not all brands will be impacted in the same way.
We expect that the brands that rely the most on search for
their performance marketing will be impacted the most. And not in
the same way, of course, and depends on what type of search
the consumers are doing.
So we just published a report where we talk about the journey
of a consumer, the different phases, and we think that the
brands that rely the most on what we call mid-funnel search
need to change how they allocate their advertising dollars to
shift them more and more towards chatbots and new advertising
models.
What other ways can brands prepare for the shift that's
coming down the line?
It's early days, so I cannot tell you that there is a one
silver bullet to address this shift.
There are few things that can be tried.
One is understand how the LLMs are digesting information, so
that your products and services are available to the LLMs, and
they're served in the right way to the consumers when they're
doing their searches.
The second way is also to do partnerships with these LLMs so
that you can make some of your content available in an easy way
to the LLMs, but maybe not everything.
So one of the things we learned is that LLMs need a lot of data
like text, but also pictures.
And we are working with a company that is providing the
text, but keeping the pictures, so that the consumers are still
going on the website to see the product.
So figuring out ways to collaborate so that you're
giving something but not everything.
Then, obviously, as these new advertising formats are
available—and, obviously, there are some chatbot that are trying
advertising—learn, test, see what works, see what doesn't
work.
And then, specifically for some brands where the product line is
complex so there is a lot of products, I think experimenting
with the proprietary LLM that is engaging with consumers and
explaining to them the products and giving them a better
experience, that could be something also to try.
Ernesto, a pleasure as always.
Thank you.