by In this article, I’ll break down where things are headed — how ChatGPT is evolving, what Google is struggling with behind the scenes, and where all of this leaves search as we know it.
Bear with me.
By the end of this, I think you’ll have a much clearer picture of what’s happening.
We’re standing at a crossroads. The way people search for information online — something that’s been stable for decades — is changing fast. Google has dominated this space for years, shaping how businesses get found and how users get answers. But now, with AI tools like ChatGPT stepping into the role of a search engine, everything is starting to shift for … the worst.
I’ve worked in SEO since 2001 — back when we still called it web positioning because “SEO” wasn’t even a thing yet. I also hold a PhD from a faculty focusing on AI models and information retrieval. As an information scientist, I need to tell you this:
The Quiet Revolution: How ChatGPT Is Redefining the Way We Search
For decades, Google has been the center of the search universe. Need to find a local business? Google. Shopping for a product? Google. Comparing services? Google again. The entire ecosystem of SEO been built around the idea that people turn to Google first when they’re looking for something.
ChatGPT didn’t seem like part of that picture at first.
When ChatGPT emerged not long ago, it felt like a tool for answering questions, drafting emails, or explaining complex topics in simple terms. It wasn’t where you went to search for a plumber, a marketing agency, or the best pizza spot nearby. It wasn’t designed for that — Google owned that space.
But all of that is starting to change … fast!
Ask ChatGPT today for “SEO services in San Diego,” and you don’t just get a paragraph explaining what SEO is. You get business names. You get rankings. You get maps and locations — the exact kind of structured results you’d expect from Google. It feels familiar, like using a search engine, but without the clutter of ads, sponsored posts, or the overwhelming pages of links.
This small adjustment in how ChatGPT delivers information is reshaping how people interact with search altogether.
Instead of bouncing between multiple websites, comparing options, and filtering through ads, users are staying right here. They’re using ChatGPT not just for answers but for decisions. They’re finding businesses, researching services, and getting recommendations all in one place.
The core of search behavior is changing.
It’s not just about finding information anymore — it’s about trusting the source that gives it to you fastest and cleanest. In this new landscape, the lines between search engines and AI assistants are blurring. And as ChatGPT continues to refine how it delivers results, it’s becoming clear: it doesn’t want to be tool for writing and answering questions — it’s also becoming the next major player in search.
And I am concerned.
Not because my role as an SEO. Because we’re standing at the edge of real intelligence falling apart. Humanity is becoming dumber by the minute.
Let me explain:
The Collapse of Quality
For years, we’ve measured the value of search engines — especially Google — by the quality of the information they provide. But that framework no longer applies. The entire ecosystem of how people consume information has changed. It’s not about accuracy, depth, or educational value anymore. It’s about attention.
You already know this.
But let me talk about the the consequences.
Look at where the next generation gets its information: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, Snapchat, and more. Platforms built not to inform, but to captivate. These spaces don’t reward truth or depth — they reward whatever gets your attention. The result? Nearly all the content consumed there is user-generated, unfiltered, unchecked, many based on fake and made-up stories. By some estimates, over 98% of the information circulating on these platforms comes from users, not experts, and not from people with the training and university degrees to back their claims such as scientists, journalists or scholars.
And it’s not just social media influencers driving this decline. Even traditional media outlets — once the gatekeepers of credible information — have been dragged into the same race for attention. Many legacy news organizations have abandoned long-form investigative work in favor of quick-hit videos, headlines designed to provoke outrage, and short clips optimized for engagement rather than understanding. The pressure to compete in this environment is too great. It’s adapt or disappear. So, they’ve adapted — but in doing so, they’ve become part of the social problem.
This marks a fundamental shift in human history.
For the first time, we’re not just witnessing a decline in knowledge — we’re watching it collapse under the weight of entertainment-driven algorithms. The collective pursuit of truth, science, and intellectual growth is losing ground to the race for clicks, likes, and shares. The goal? Ad revenue. Money.
Where does this leave Google?
For all the claims about Google’s role in organizing the world’s information, it has always catered to user demand more than objective quality. Its algorithms are designed to surface what people want — not necessarily what’s accurate, meaningful, or useful for human progress. And as user demand shifts toward shallower, more stimulating content reflect that. Search for just about anything now on Google, and you’re as likely to see a page cluttered with ads, YouTube videos — mostly shorts nowadays — images, and other attention-grabbing distractions instead of thoughtful, in-depth knowledge.
Google’s search results have become part of the same attention economy that drives social media. They’re filled with visual noise, click-worthy thumbnails, and snack-sized answers meant to keep you clicking, watching, and engaging — not necessarily learning or knowing.
So when Google positions itself as the guardian of quality information against platforms like ChatGPT, it’s a hollow argument. The larger problem isn’t that ChatGPT lacks quality — it’s that the entire online information ecosystem has devalued quality.
In this new environment, Google can’t win the battle for relevance by claiming to offer “better” information. That’s why the argument doesn’t resonate with users anymore.
What I wanted to say is that Google isn’t interested in winning this competition based on quality.
But where is ChatGPT heading right now?
How ChatGPT Is Skipping Google’s 30-Year Head Start
Let’s take a step back for a moment and look at how we got here.
Long before AI entered the picture, Google’s biggest challenge was figuring out how to understand the content on websites. The web is messy — different structures, formats, styles, and levels of quality. To make sense of it, Google spent decades refining its algorithms. It constantly updated how it ranked and retrieved information, slowly getting better at identifying which pages were useful and relevant.
But that wasn’t enough. Google also pushed webmasters to meet certain standards — publishing Google Webmaster Guidelines and creating Google Search Console, rewarding sites that followed them, and penalizing those that didn’t. That’s where SEO experts came in. They learned to navigate these rules, mastering the technical quirks that helped sites rank better.
SEOs helped Google to make websites better crawlable.
For decades, this is how search worked: Google set the rules, website owners adapted, and the algorithm decided what showed up in search results.
Then came ChatGPT. And it skipped all of that.
Without relying on Google’s algorithms or its almost 30 years of crawling and indexing experience, ChatGPT is scanning the web in its own way — and somehow delivering results that people actually like.
How is that even possible?
Here’s the catch: users, especially younger users (Zoomers/Gen Z and the upcoming Generation Alpha) aren’t demanding the same level of depth or accuracy from the content they consume anymore. They’re not reading long articles, comparing sources, or checking facts like previous generations might have. Instead, they’re used to getting quick, simplified answers — even if the information is incomplete or surface-level. In many cases, they don’t even notice.
This is the same trend driving social media platforms I mentioned before. As I said, these platforms don’t reward quality or depth — they reward engagement.
And that’s exactly where ChatGPT is headed, even if it doesn’t feel like it just yet. Down the road, ChatGPT and all the others—Gemini, AI Overview, Copilot, Meta AI, and whatever else comes next—won’t be about giving perfect answers. It’ll be about delivering information in a way that feels engaging and keeps you hooked.
And these AI platforms such as ChatGPT don’t need an algorithm in the traditional sense. They use AI to decide what’s relevant, shifting away from rule-based systems. The AI feels like it knows what matters, and for most younger users today, that’s enough.
Google, on the other hand, is in the middle of a transformation. While its traditional algorithms are still in place, AI is becoming a bigger part of how it processes information and understands knowledge.
The future of search therefore isn’t about crawling, indexing, and ranking the way it used to be. It’s about using AI to make sense of the chaos — turning unstructured data into something people want to consume.
Google won’t abandon its algorithm overnight. But bit by bit, we’re already seeing how AI is reshaping the way Google handles search. The structured crawl-and-rank model that’s driven SEO for decades is giving way to AI-driven understanding and presentation.
In the end, Google will likely follow the same path ChatGPT is on — becoming less of a traditional search engine and more of an AI-powered interface. The lines between searching and asking are already blurring.
The future of how we find information online will be defined not by algorithms, but by AI.
What This Means for the Future of SEO
As AI takes control of how people search, the old rules of SEO are crumbling. For years, SEO was about technical mastery — crafting websites so Google’s crawlers could understand, rank, and serve them to users. But with AI models like ChatGPT stepping in, the game isn’t the same anymore. It’s not about helping bots crawl your site. It’s about feeding the machine something it can summarize, reshape, and push to users in the way it sees fit.
Here’s how this shift will happen in the next years:
Content Will Get Shorter — and Simpler and Dumber
One of the most obvious casualties is content depth. In the old SEO world, long-form articles stuffed with keywords and layered with research were the gold standard. Google rewarded depth because its algorithms needed something to measure — authority, relevance, comprehensiveness.
But AI of the future won’t care, anymore. When users ask an AI something, they aren’t looking for essays. They want a quick fix. AI is built to condense, to simplify, to strip away the nuance. Especially the new generation of young users are only used to that.
The future of SEO bends toward content that’s:
- Carved into clean sections for AI to rip apart and repackage.
- Frontloaded with answers — not detail, just enough to stop the question.
- Stripped of complexity, boiled down to the bare minimum.
- Devoid of eloquence or intellectual richness — replaced by plain, conversational tones.
In-depth content wont go away completely — there are still plenty of niche industries that rely on it, like architecture, engineering, science, and the like. But the first thing users see — the content AI feeds them — will always be the easiest to digest, the simplest, the most shallow.
Truth Dies Here
Once, SEO had a code: be right, be thorough, back your claims. But the future AI search won’t work that way. The platforms of the future won’t be built for truth. They’ll be built for engagement.
The only reason ChatGPT isn’t there yet is because it’s still experimental. And it’s ad-free. For now. But once ad revenue becomes part of ChatGPT—and of course, it will sooner or later—you’ll see ChatGPT and all the other AI platforms shift toward engagement- and ad-driven content.
Why?
Because ad revenue only comes when users are satisfied just long enough to move on—if they feel their question was answered, that’s enough. If the content sparks curiosity — even if it’s wrong — that’s a win. AI search of the future will see engagement as the only measure of success.
This is social media all over again. The content that wins isn’t the truest — it’s the content that gets the click, the share, the like. Welcome to the same dark circus, but now it’s AI’s turn.
Therefore, in the future, let’s expect more:
- Snappy soundbites designed to stop questions, not start thinking.
- Chatty, conversational fluff that feels personal — even though it’s in fact not and just automated
- Visual noise — images, AI-generated snippets, flashy diagrams — distractions to keep users locked in.
Trust Will No Longer Be Yours
Trust used to be earned. Authority, backlinks, expertise — these were your tools. But AI Search will change the rules. Now, trust belongs to the platform.
When users ask ChatGPT something today, they trust the AI — not the source. Your hard work, your research, your authority? Irrelevant. The machine rewrites you, repackages you, presents your ideas as its own. The platform gets the credit. You’re just raw material.
To survive the future as Web Owner or SEO, you’ll need to:
- Write for the machine — clear, stripped down, easy to parse and reassemble.
- Forget about backlinks. Forget about building authority. Focus on being usable to AI.
- Accept that the platform owns the trust. You are invisible behind it.
SEO Will Become Content Farming for the Machine
This is where SEO loses its soul. Climbing Google’s ranks will be things of the past. Because AI doesn’t crawl and index like Google did. It trains. It consumes vast datasets, learning patterns from the wreckage of existing content.
For the future of SEO, this means abandoning the old game. Now, it’s about getting into the machine’s training set, or at least being easy enough for AI to reference without motivating deep thought.
What does this look like?
- Create content that spreads — not because it’s valuable, but because it’s easy, entertaining, provocative.
- Shape your work around the questions people throw at AI. Don’t aim to help them — just confirm what they already believe.
In this future, SEO won’t be about optimization — it’s will about farming. Feeding the machine what it craves, not what people really need, but what they think they need.
SEO was an information crawler.
AI will be a knowledge muncher.
The Takeaway: Satisfy the Machine, Not the Human
SEO of the future will no longer be about search engines. It will be about shaping content for AI. Making it structured, accessible, and engaging enough for the platforms people actually use to search.
Forget about quality. Forget about value. SEOs of the future will focus on getting content in front of users through the machine. The real challenge will be figuring out how to slip through AI’s filters — how to stay visible in a world where the machine stands between you and your audience, deciding what lives and what gets ghosted.
Looking ahead, the ChatGPT we know today won’t survive in its current form. It will fall into the same trap as every platform before it, along with all other AI platforms — the same trap that swallowed social media.
As these giants compete for attention, they’ll each adapt, chasing engagement at any cost. Google will flood users with entertaining distractions. ChatGPT and other AI platforms will follow, reshaping themselves to keep pace. Social media will stay locked in its own cycle, continuing to feed the addiction it created.
Together, they’ll drag each other deeper into the same abyss — a race to the bottom where truth, depth, and value are stripped away, leaving only the constant churn of hollow, attention-grabbing content.
Back in the day, old folks would sigh and say:
“Shame I’m too old to see where this great technology is headed.”
Today, I’m saying this:
“Shame, I’m not old enough to miss whatever this is becoming”
What do you think? Leave comments below.
