The Demise of Google Search and the Rise of Generative AI

Summary

Podcast Summary: Business Lunch - "The Demise of Google Search and the Rise of Generative AI"

Release Date: January 29, 2025

Hosts:

• Roland Frasier - Serial Entrepreneur/Business Strategist
• Ryan - Co-host

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1. Introduction

In this episode of Business Lunch, Roland Frasier and Ryan delve into the transformative impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on traditional business models, with a specific focus on Google Search. The conversation is sparked by recent articles and podcasts discussing the fear of becoming obsolete (FOBO) in the age of AI advancements.

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2. Predicted Decline of Google Search Volume

Key Discussion Points:

• Gartner's Prediction: Gartner forecasts a 25% drop in search engine volume by 2026 due to the rise of AI chatbots and virtual agents.

Notable Quote:

• Ryan [07:37]: “Gartner predicts... search engine volume will drop 25% by 2026 due to AI chatbots and other virtual agents... people are going to stop going to google.com and to the search box completely.”

Analysis:

• Both hosts agree that traditional search engines are likely to be supplanted by AI-driven chatbots that provide direct answers.
• Roland contextualizes Google's current state, comparing it to the decline of Yahoo, emphasizing Google's cluttered user experience and over-reliance on ads.

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3. Shift to Generative AI and AI Chatbots

Key Discussion Points:

• AI Chatbots as Substitute Answer Engines: AI solutions like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are becoming the primary tools for information retrieval.
• China’s OpenAI Move: China has open-sourced its AI algorithms, potentially fostering a crowd-sourced AI development platform that could rival American counterparts.

Notable Quotes:

• Roland [07:37]: “I think that you would have to... traditional search engines... in favor of the AI chat engines like OpenAI, Gemini, Claude... People would rather have answers, they want the same.”

Analysis:

• The hosts discuss how AI chatbots offer a more streamlined and ad-free user experience, which is increasingly preferred over traditional search engines laden with ads and paywalls.
• The potential for AI to dominate the search space is tied to user preference for efficiency and relevance in information retrieval.

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4. Impact on SEO and Marketing Strategies

Key Discussion Points:

• Shift in SEO Practices: Traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is evolving to cater to AI chatbots. Businesses need to adapt their content strategies to be compatible with AI-driven search mechanisms.
• Opportunities for Businesses: Optimizing content in Q&A formats and utilizing schema markup can enhance visibility within AI chatbot responses.

Notable Quotes:

• Roland [16:28]: “SEO is back, it's moved to AI chatbots... Q and A format about your products... a giant opportunity to people that come in and do it right.”

Analysis:

• The transition to AI-driven search necessitates a reevaluation of SEO strategies. Businesses must focus on creating content that is easily digestible by AI, ensuring their information is accurately represented and sourced by chatbots.

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5. Monetization and Content Providers

Key Discussion Points:

• Content Licensing: AI companies are beginning to license content from publishers and authors, altering the traditional content monetization landscape.
• Value for Content Creators: The compensation from AI licensing is minimal compared to the revenue generated by content platforms like Google.

Notable Quotes:

• Ryan [20:52]: “...content providers are getting paid. It flips itself... It’s like YouTubers that have a million streams and make $400, you know, it’s like it’s not anywhere close to the money Google makes.”

Analysis:

• As AI models rely on vast amounts of existing content for training, content creators face reduced direct monetization opportunities. The emphasis shifts to monetizing through ancillary means such as events and exclusive interactions.

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6. Job Displacement and Upskilling

Key Discussion Points:

• Displacement Across Industries: AI advancements are poised to impact virtually every industry, leading to significant job displacement, especially in roles centered around information processing and content assembly.
• Necessity of Upskilling: Employees must upskill to work alongside AI, enhancing their roles rather than being replaced by it.

Notable Quotes:

• Roland [23:31]: “Employees have the fear that the employers move to heavy AI will completely displace them... we need to upskill employees to allow them to bring AI in to help them perform what they do better.”

Analysis:

• The hosts emphasize that while AI will displace certain jobs, it also creates opportunities for those who adapt and acquire new skills aligned with AI integration. Not everyone will transition successfully, highlighting the importance of proactive upskilling.

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7. Hosts' Experiences and Examples

Key Discussion Points:

• AI in Copywriting: Ryan shares an instance where a copywriter leveraged AI to streamline content creation, effectively reducing the need for multiple human writers.
• AI in CRM Migration: Roland discusses how AI tools like ChatGPT assisted in planning a complex Customer Relationship Management (CRM) migration, showcasing AI’s potential to handle intricate tasks efficiently.

Notable Quotes:

• Ryan [25:22]: “He can write copy... once it's there, it's pretty good... I think you either need to be doing [original work] or you need to be doing something manually with your hands.”

Analysis:

• These examples illustrate practical applications of AI in business operations, highlighting both the efficiency gains and the potential redundancy of certain roles. The hosts underscore the necessity for businesses to integrate AI thoughtfully to enhance productivity without entirely eliminating human roles.

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8. Timeline and Future Outlook

Key Discussion Points:

• Skepticism on Rapid Change: Both hosts express skepticism regarding the immediacy of AI's impact, believing that significant shifts will occur over a decade rather than within a few years.
• Long-Term Adaptation: The conversation touches on the cyclical nature of technology adoption, suggesting that while AI will eventually dominate, the process will be gradual and allow time for adaptation.

Notable Quotes:

• Roland [33:42]: “It is a generational move. This is a, you know, probably a 30 year full move... I am okay. You probably still have to worry about it.”

Analysis:

• The hosts argue that while AI will undeniably transform industries, the timeline is often exaggerated. They advocate for a balanced view, recognizing both the potential disruptions and the opportunities for gradual adaptation and growth.

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9. Conclusion

Key Takeaways:

• Adapt or Perish: Businesses and individuals must pivot towards AI-centric strategies to remain relevant in an AI-dominated landscape.
• Opportunities Amidst Change: While AI poses threats to traditional roles and models, it also provides avenues for innovation and enhanced efficiency.
• Balanced Optimism: The hosts maintain a cautiously optimistic stance, acknowledging both the challenges and the prospects that AI brings to the future of business.

Final Thoughts: Roland and Ryan encourage listeners to stay informed and proactive in embracing AI advancements. They highlight the importance of leveraging AI as a tool for growth rather than viewing it solely as a threat to existing structures.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Ryan]

You had sent me a Business Insider article that was fobo, or fear of becoming obsolete is the new business buzzword. So apparently, you know, you got all these kind of big wig muckety mucks out at Davos talking about, you know, these world changing things. And what everybody's freaked out about is how every, you know, they're all about to become obsolete.

[Roland]

Why?

[Ryan]

Again, because of AI. AI is making everybody obsolete.

[Roland]

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Business Lunch. This is the episode that almost didn't happen because someone came in. We redid our little podcast room upstairs here and somebody came in and I guess disassembled my entire camera and everything, because I touched it.

[Ryan]

They were helping Roland help.

[Roland]

I touched it and it, I'm going to say, I don't want to say literally exploded, but it did literally fall into several pieces, including the camera going down. Two tripods that were holding it up slowly sinking while Ryan was like, wait, you're getting lower and. But here we are on the iPad.

[Ryan]

It was so fun, by the way, to see it from this side of the camera. Like, to be on the other side of the lens and watch it happen was great. Yeah, it's like, I don't know what happened, but I think Roland's dead. I think he just got hit by an asteroid. Glad that's not what happened.

[Roland]

So, anyway, here we are. And Ryan, I'm having a little bit of a things falling apart on me kind of day. How are you doing?

[Ryan]

You know what? I'm doing great. Funny enough. My, you know, while we're talking about technology, my youngest, he's in the robotics club. And so that's what I did this weekend was go to this, like, robotics competition. And what's funny is the weekend before.

[Roland]

That, my daughter had little cars that attack each other and things.

[Ryan]

So this one wasn't that they had to like, perform all these little tasks. Right. So it was similar to that, but it wasn't like a battlebot thing. That's another league. I think that's in the spring. But yeah, so I did that this weekend. Last weekend was my daughter's, like, dance competition. Like her, like, dance, you know, deal. And boy, you could not imagine two different groups. It was quite a contrast. So. So yeah, it was. And just one of them was exceptionally run. I. Everything was perfect. Like, the visuals, the. Musically, that was the guys. The guys running the dumpster fire. And I'll let you figure out which was which.

[Roland]

I'm going to guess the guys were super organized because they're engineers and yeah, not that.

[Ryan]

Yeah, no executive function really over there, but yeah, it was great.

[Roland]

Nice.

[Ryan]

Any one of them, though, could have fixed your setup. That's where I was going with that. Any one of them would have had your setup on lockdown.

[Roland]

How old is Timmy now?

[Ryan]

He's about to turn 13, so.

[Roland]

Okay, I need some more 13 year olds here helping with the. The technical side of things because my son, I think he's aging out. Ryan, you know, he's. He's 30 something now. I think it's just.

[Ryan]

It's.

[Roland]

He's just too old, you know, Too old. Time to move him on. Put him out to pass. I could do that because he's on his way over here, guys.

[Ryan]

He.

[Roland]

He can't possibly be listening to this. And I don't think he ever listens to this after the fact anyway. But that said, you guys probably don't care about any of this stuff. What you might care about is a couple of articles and thoughts that Ryan and I were circulating back and forth, which I pulled them up on my computer, but when I do, my screen goes black because I'm on my iPad. And Riverside thought that. Why on earth would you want to have it continue to broadcast while referencing some material? Let's interrupt the flow and turn off the video when that happens. So, anyway, that being said, what the heck are we talking about today?

[Ryan]

Yeah, well, it's fun because I sent you an article that I saw that I thought was interesting. You sent me one. And then I was also listening to another podcast, and they're all kind of in and around the same thing. So I guess to set this up, the article that I sent you is a press release. Gartner predicts search engine volume will drop 25% by 2026 due to AI chatbots and other virtual agents. So I want to get your thoughts on that specifically, you know, in just a second. But then you had sent me, which. Which I think is highly related, you had sent me a Business Insider article that was fobo, or fear of becoming obsolete is the new business buzzword. So apparently, you know, you got all these kind of big wig muckety mucks out at Davos talking about, you know, these world changing things. And what everybody's freaked out about is how every, you know, they're all about to become obsolete. Why? Again, because of AI. AI is making everybody obsolete. And I was listening to Tim Burris's podcast, but I don't listen. Oh, sorry. What's up?

[Roland]

And then you have. What was the. The China released their Deep. What is it? Deep something. Deep city Deep. What is it?

[Ryan]

Yeah, deep something.

[Roland]

There's deep something. They released their deep thing that basically opens, as I understand I skimmed that headline before we came here, that opens the algorithm of kind of open sources, the algorithm of how they are doing mathematical and logical operations, which is something that none of our American Claude, OpenAI and Gemini to my knowledge have done. So that's a big, that's a big thing too, which is also related to this because that's like, you know, I don't know. Foipo, fear of intellectual property, you know, it's, it's like they're miss. That's going to be an interesting thing too because obviously what I would think politically China would like would be to open up the open source and have everybody developing on their platform while America gets left behind and they end up with a crowdsourced best AI engine ever, which they then can control and could withdraw at any time. And you know, I'm sure the government would love that you're concerned about TikTok. I can only imagine how concerning AI would be. So seemed like lots of, lots of interesting things to talk about and the.

[Ryan]

The and similarly, by the way, just, just to continue to set this up, I was listening to the Tim Burris podcast. He had Chris Sacca on who's a, you know, big like startup guy and they were kind of going through all the jobs that are essentially going to be displaced and you know, sack ass, you know, Tim Ferriss like, hey, so if you have a kid, are you going to have him go to college for, you know, to be a lawyer, you know? No, because like all, you know, every legal document is going to be done by this. You can have him be, you know, a finance major or an accountant. No, you know, what about. No, you know, and Tim asked him like, so what does this mean for humanity? And sack, his response was we're effed. You know, he used the full word. This is a family show. And that was kind of like the big takeaway is like this human race is about to become obsolete, you know. So apparently though it's going to start with Google and then trickle down to the whole of humanity. So I would just love to get your take. Let's kind of start off easy. Let's ease into the demise of humanity. That's where we want to end up, easing into the demise of humanity. We're going to start with Google, where Gartner predicts again as early as 2026, which is in less than a year. Mind you as early as 2026 search engine volume is going to drop 25%. Your thoughts?

[Roland]

I don't. That doesn't surprise me because, and I, I think that you would have to. I, I couldn't tell because neither you nor I wanted to invest $40,000 in Gartner's research program to be able to read the full report. So we're kind of going from the, from the, you know the, the, the cheap seats here. But that, that said my guess is that they are talking about traditional search engines in favor of the AI chat engines like OpenAI, Gemini, Claude, et cetera Grok not to leave Elon out because you know he always calls us when we leave him out and he's like guys, you know anyway the, the so so you know to me that's not, not any kind of news at all because Google is the Yahoo of search today. They are, they have cluttered the, the thing that made them great before was having the easy one focus thing and then that led to relevant search results and they were all about relevance for years and then they've just side saddled themselves into basically you know, Yahoo what Yahoo was before which was the search box cluttered with all these other things. Now you search for something I almost never find and I'm a pretty good searcher. What I'm looking for I've got to get through 4 to 5 ads on the top plus keyword stuff stuff such plus paywall gated stuff when I want to click on something and I take it takes me to a thing that says now you can pay to sign up. That's like a. I can't believe they've allowed the user experience on Google to decline as much as it has and in favor of money but that's so short sighted and it's shows you to me the danger of a monopoly because I think they, they own so much of the search space that they just like we don't care we're going to do this to make money and you know that's the capitalist thing to do which is fine but it's a crappy user experience and now they're going to suffer because of that because I would way rather I use Gemini but I use Chat GPT and Claude and I don't really want to use Gemini because I'm still pissed at them for doing what they did. And the only reason that we have these other. The only reason we have gemini is because OpenAI forced their hand. So and, and the only reason we have not Gemini with ads is because OpenAI AI and Claude don't have it and they've gone for the subscription model. So my hope is that they all maintain equal revenue, you know, equal market share. Give, give Claude 30 and you know, 40 to chat GPT and 30 to Google and let you know, Elon come in and maybe it ends up 25. But, but that's the only thing that gives us a prayer of having a decent user experience. So of course everyone's going to bail on not relevant search result not giving me the answers. I'm looking for engines like Google in favor of let me ask a question and get straight to what I want without a whole bunch of ads. Now as that evolves, we'll see does that tip the scales back at all towards search? But unless they radically change the user experience there and I don't think Google can afford to change it because I think enough people are slow adopters of AI and chat bots that they're, they're going to milk that for as long as they can. But if we're talking search as chatbots, that's where it's going to go. People would rather have answers, they want the same. It's what Bezos said when he said I look at not what is going to change tomorrow. I look at what's never going to change. What's never going to change is people want their stuff on time, they want it faster, they don't want to pay for shipping, they want what they ordered in search. People want answers. Whoever gives them answers, the best answers the fastest, with the least amount of friction, that's who's going to win. So I think that platform wise, unless, unless, and I'll stop ranting here in a minute, unless Google basically fuses Gemini with the Google search engine, which probably wouldn't be a terrible idea, and then make it either ad free for 20 bucks a month or you know, with ads for not unless they do something like that. I think Google search is going to die, you know, a long death like traditional media has because it's got a lot of tale of, of unsophisticated users. But then, then it's not really changing anything though. Like that's not a revelatory statement that it's going to decline by 25% because it's just going to move over to a different place. They're, it's effectively, we're not using Google, we're now using Bing, we're not using Google, we're now using OpenAI. That's, that's my, my short take what is, what is your take on it?

[Ryan]

Yeah, people are never going to stop having questions and they're always going to seek answers, you know, from somewhere, something resembling, you know, on the line, you know. Yeah. What I have a problem with. And I'll read the full, I'll read the full quote from the piece. So this is from Alan Anton, who's the vice president analyst at Gartner. He said organic and paid search are vital channels for tech marketers seeking to reach awareness and demand generational goals. Generative AI solutions are becoming substitute answer engines. To your point, they're becoming substitute answer engines, replacing user queries that previously may have been executed in traditional search engines. This will force companies to rethink their marketing channel strategies as gen AI becomes embedded across all aspects of the enterprise. So what he's saying is that people are going to stop going to google.com and to the search box completely. I believe that that is true. What I have a problem with is 25% in under 12 months. I just don't see it falling off that fast. These businesses that have taken 20 plus years to get where they are, they die a very, very slow and a very profitable death. So do I think it's going to happen? I don't have a problem with the prediction. I have a problem with the timeline. And all I got to look at is all my redneck friends. Like this is one of the nice things about like and why I just tell every marketer and entrepreneur and technologist, for the love of God, get you some normal friends and just look at what they do. Because you know what, they're all still doing Google and stuff. Yeah, almost none of my normal friends are using Chad. They might use it recreationally, right? Like it's a drug, but it is not something that they use all the time. Now compare that to like YouTube.

[Roland]

Right?

[Ryan]

They're now all finally cutting the cord and you go over their house and they're pulling up YouTube on the big screen. Now that took a while though because all my more technologist friends have been doing that for years and years and years. How long did it take podcasts to become the thing that everybody listened to? We've been talking about podcasts and doing stuff for over a decade.

[Roland]

YouTube would be what, about 18 years because was it 2007 that that kind of Google was either six or seven that they bought? So, so that's a pretty, that's a pretty fair analogy. I like that because that, that fall off period and it's still obviously got a long tail that's what's going to happen with search too. It's going to be slow. Yeah, I agree with you on that. It would be highly unlikely that in a single year all search volume declines 25%.

[Ryan]

Yeah, I wouldn't. Globally now what I do, like I thought, really interesting prediction. I hadn't thought about it this way. Um, I, I wonder if Google's not doing this on purpose. What if they're making the experience so miserably crappy so that they can introduce a premium version that is ad free. I mean, this is what Spotify did, this is what YouTube did. And their experiences weren't even that bad. They just had a few ads every now and then. If Google at this point were to say, hey, hey, for 20 bucks a month, you know, you're gonna have no ads, so there's not gonna be any Google Ads or heck, if it was just even the old school where only ads in the sidebar, that would be a breath of fresh air. So just sidebar ads only. And like Gemini is not gonna suck with respect to the kind of the search queries. That'll be 20 bucks a month. I mean, I'd pay for that. Would you pay 20 bucks a month for Google? But at the same time, kind of their brand is, it's always been free, so they're gonna have to call it something different.

[Roland]

I wouldn't do it now, you know, but I'm not one of your friends, right? I mean, you know, I am your friend, but I'm not one of your, you know, I, I am, I am a weird friend.

[Ryan]

That's cold, man.

[Roland]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ryan]

You're one of my weird friends, not one of my normie friends.

[Roland]

I don't, I don't, you know, I don't use Google at all anymore unless I can't get what I want from the search, you know, from the chatbots.

[Ryan]

So I think we, I think we agree, yes, it's going to happen. I would definitely, I would, I would short the idea of this happening though, of the 25% by 2026. I mean, again, that's like frickin 11 months from now. And I've seen this, by the way, with people who make predictions, they're directionally accurate, they're just brutally off on their timelines all the time. They always think it's going to happen faster than it does.

[Roland]

So yeah, it does. It does though, to me create a giant opportunity. And it's one you and I have talked about a while, is that SEO is back, it's moved to AI chatbots. And so how, how do you want your site set up now to be able to have the answers that are being returned, especially now that sources are being cited. How do you want to set up your, you know, your overall text on your website is moving much towards how do people interact with the chatbots? Because they're gonna, they're gonna scrape and pick up the things that make it easiest for them to process and answer too. So if you've got Q and A format about your products, about your market, you know that, like that whole initial information about your market followed by, which is gonna help the AI target who it's relevant for to Q and A format, which is gonna help them be easy, have an easier time seeing that the specific question is being asked, that is being asked to the chatbot is being answered by your website. And then the schema markup stuff that is making it easy for them to get in and analyze that and deliver it. Like, that's a giant opportunity which to me reignites the possibility of SEO which had kind of gone away other than just, you know, make good content and, you know, put it in the right format. So that's exciting, I think, and I think it's an opportunity and a threat because it's a threat to the people that don't do it. And it's a giant opportunity to people that come in and do it right to start.

[Ryan]

And so, and I'll tell you, it's a benefit like those. It's funny because it simultaneously benefits and hurts the legacy brands, because if you're a legacy, you know, website, a legacy business that has a lot of content that's already out there, that's already been indexed, the AI bots have been crawling you and learning from you, whether you like it or not, for a very, very long time. And so good news, like, they, there's going to come a time when they're going to have to start sourcing you and they're going to start queuing you up, but if you don't take those extra steps of optimizing for it, it's probably not going to happen. You're leaving the door open for disruption. So it's simultaneously a good opportunity for you while at the same time opening the door for somebody else. It's funny you mentioned the sourcing there, because it's weird. AI and AI search is living kind of in these two worlds, and I can't tell which direction it's going to go, because the history of search is one where websites, content providers, desperately came Cap in hand, please sir, may I have some more to Google, begging to be listed. Scrape all my content, whatever you want, just please, for the love of God, tell people about me and send people to me, right? You can have all my content that you want. I'll serve it up for you on a silver platter, right? I'll do whatever you want.

[Roland]

Come on.

[Ryan]

Right, that's the history of search is content providers kowtowing to the search engines. What we're seeing now though with AI companies is they're having to go back and to the content providers and license them for all the content that they're learning from. I've got a friend who's a big time author who's written a bunch of best selling books and they just got approached last week from their publisher saying hey, you know, we just got hit up from a couple of the major AI companies. Obviously OpenAI, I think Google was, was among them and they're doing a big licensing deal with this publisher across their entire catalog and each author got an option to opt into it and, and they got paid a certain amount of money for it. So this author, they were coming to me like, what do you think? It's like this is the check that I would get, but kind of once I say yes to this, that's, that's kind of all I will ever get from it. But it was sort of this one time deal with the publisher. So it seems like the future of AI is the content providers are getting paid. So I wonder if it's going to be one of those things where if you're getting sourced, you're getting paid and it flips itself. But probably not because I still think there's going to come a day where everybody wants to just be featured and seen. We all want to be famous. What do you think?

[Roland]

I agree. I think that what we're seeing is that the Spotify model of we're going to put your stuff out there and if you're not on here, you're going to be irrelevant and your fans won't have access and they'll find other people and if you are on here, we're going to pay you pennies and that we're all of the content providers are going to have to Taylor Swift it and figure out how do I monetize outside the sale of that, that digital stuff. Right. So physical books, obviously they were going to go away. When Amazon came along, you know, 20 plus years ago, that didn't happen. People still buy tons of physical books so you'll still have the ability to make your money that way. You'll get discovered through the AI chatbots that you're maybe going to get a sliver of nothing for. It's not going to matter. It's like YouTubers that have a million streams and make $400, you know, it's like it's not anywhere close to the money Google makes. But what you will do is you'll find other ways to monetize. So you'll monetize through events and things that can't be duplicated, like an interactive, you know, thing or something like that. So it's going to basically be you're not making money from the sale of books, really, you're making money from the things that you do up, up the funnel from that. So it's really what happened with Spoto. To me, that's the best example I can think of. And it's going to be the same.

[Ryan]

Yeah, I think that's a great, great analogy. All right, any. Anything else you want to say about Google or you want to move on to the death of humanity as a whole?

[Roland]

I think we can go straight to the death.

[Ryan]

Yeah. Yeah. So, long story short, if you're in the SEO business, pivot to gen AI optimization. If you have a legacy website, find somebody who knows how to optimize for the generative AI bots so that you can get listed there when the time comes. And if you're a new website, probably don't try to double down on traditional SEO.

[Roland]

I agree. That's a big one too. I think if you're new, go in, go AI and screw the other stuff, don't. Why enter the Red Sea anyway, you know?

[Ryan]

Yeah, it's like coming in, you know, today and being like, you know what? I think I want to see if I can make a go at Buggy Whip manufacturing. I think that's going to be huge. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

[Roland]

All right, so cyclical, Ryan. Technology is cyclical. We'll be back.

[Ryan]

Yeah, horse and carriage is coming back. People, people love the great outdoors and just the wind blowing through their hair. The original convertible. All right, fear of becoming obsolete. What do you think? Should we be afraid?

[Roland]

I think that. I think it's a legit fear. It's specifically that article is in the context of employees that are. The companies are fomo. They don't want to miss out on the opportunity of getting AI and be out competed. But the employees have the fear that the employers move to heavy AI will Completely displace them. And the happy solution is that we need to upskill employees to allow them to bring AI in to help them perform what they do better. And it may be upskilling them out of replaced jobs into, you know, better jobs. And not everyone will make it. Not everyone will want to. Not everyone will be open. Not everyone will be capable. Although it's a pretty daggone low bar. So I think it makes sense. You know, I think it's a real thing, and it's. It's definitely happening. And even you and I know, in our businesses is like, we don't need as many copywriters as we needed before. But you know what? Until it dramatically improves, we still need copywriters, right?

[Ryan]

Well, it's interesting you mentioned that specific example, because we were actually interviewing for copywriters at one of our companies, and we had a guy come in and apply for the job. And he said, and one of the questions that we're asking everybody is, how do you feel about leveraging AI in your copy? And the only wrong answer is, I don't want to use AI at all. Like, to me, that is the only wrong answer. I want to see as a copywriter that you're somehow leveraging AI, Whether you're doing it for research or for, like, I just. To not use it as a tool, to me, is just foolish. But this person said. He said, yeah, I'm almost exclusively AI. I was like, okay, I don't know that I like that very much at all.

[Roland]

That makes me very nervous.

[Ryan]

Yeah, I was like, that. That terrifies me. And. But he broke down his entire. His entire process. And how. He's like, what I actually do is I come into companies. And he said, I'll be completely transparent. He's like, I'm not actually looking for a job. He's like, this is what I do. I come in.

[Roland]

He came in on a deception, which is a little frustrating.

[Ryan]

Like, a little frustrating. But it was a good enough pitch that I'm. And in fairness, he didn't come through the job application process. He was referred to us by somebody. And so he didn't know the full scope of everything.

[Roland]

That's fine.

[Ryan]

Yeah. I don't want to mischaracterize his intentions, so. But no, he gave me what. What I do is I come in and I actually build out these things. He's like, I can write copy. I am a copywriter. But what I found was that I was doing this for companies and they really didn't need me anymore. And so I can go in and I can set these up for companies. They can pay me a small, you know, fee to go and work it. But after a period of time, they don't really need me because it gets good enough if they got enough good copy to train it with. If they don't, that's what I write. Like I've got to produce enough good copy to train it with. That's in their voice. So they, because if you don't have good copy, it can't produce good copy from scratch. But once it's there, it's pretty good. And so we went from thinking we need to hire two copywriters to we're gonna hire this guy first and see if we can hire no copywriters and just work with the ones we got. So that's one example. Example number two, we're doing a pretty significant CRM migration away from one legacy system to HubSpot. And it's a freaking nightmare. I mean, if you've ever migrated to CRM, just, you know, I mean, it's like, let's just hit, hit yourself in the head with a freaking attack hammer.

[Roland]

How many times have we migrated in the last decade?

[Ryan]

It's like this is at least a.

[Roland]

Different business, but we are, we are like the Serengeti. We are the great migration. Once a year we're, we're like, let's all go.

[Ryan]

It's beautiful, it's beautiful. We're gonna lose all these people to.

[Roland]

The alligators, but what the heck, go again.

[Ryan]

Yeah. And it's been frustrating because, you know, trying to get the team to do it like, okay guys, go, go, go. And everybody's kind of stalled because the challenge with the migration of that is it's a big project and you don't really know where to start. So we're like, I guess we need to hire a company to come and help us. But they all charge a small fortune and half the time, and by half, I mean every time we've hired one of these groups, it's a fricking disaster. And so Richard, our business partner, got frustrated and so this weekend he started talking to our good friend Chad GPT. He's like, hey, what do you know about HubSpot migration? And he spent the whole weekend and through that going back and forth, built this entire comprehensive migration plan, uploading our docs, inputting data about the team and who would do different things in the sequence, creating checklists and had a multi page like different Google Docs that all linked into one another as the export that was the migration. And just today they've got more done on that migration they've got done in the last two weeks. And he did it this weekend literally from his phone while he was at his daughter's volleyball games and stuff like that. So I do think if your job is, I take knowledge that is available and I assemble it to then be exported to somebody else, I kind of think you're screwed. I really do. And there's a lot of jobs, especially white collar jobs that, that is like all they do.

[Roland]

It may, it may actually have a little bit different effect and I think it will because I don't think that Richard wanted to spend his time doing that. And I don't think it was probably ultimately the best use of his time given other things that he can do. And that's not a critique to Richard, that's just this is to support my point. So I need it to have been a waste of his time. But what you said was that it almost always ends up a disaster. But the truth is that we would rather do what we do and not have to contend with the migration. So if there was a competent firm that could do that for us, we would probably still prefer to hire them than to go find out how to do it ourselves. And so I think it's going to be an increase in competent done for you people that will just make it happen and it will be a winnowing out of the, of the underperforming people that have just been kind of sucking off the system, not really adding any value and charging a lot because they could and that will be good for everyone. So I think, because I think about there's a lot of things and you can in your life too. I will buy Friction Freedom and I'm happy to buy back my time. So if, you know, I don't want to do my own laundry, clean my own house, mow my own lawn, etc, because I make a lot more money than that doing other things. I can arbitrage out of that. So I think it's going to be the same thing until AI has evolved to being able to do the migration for you, which it probably will. It'll probably be, hey, ChatGPT, migrate my entire company from, you know, X to Y and it'll be like, all right, give me permission, you know, or yeah.

[Ryan]

Their new operator thing that they just did for the $200 version.

[Roland]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

Appears to be doing kind of something similar to that. Now, whether you give it full trust because it's, it's also doing some funky Stuff.

[Roland]

It's still doing lsd. It's hallucinating out his butt. Right. I mean, I had recently. So, but, but yeah. So, I mean, I think for the, you know, the next three to five years anyway, they're, they're safe. But you'll see, hopefully all these bozos that have been kind of ripping us off by charging us exorbitant rates to do things that weren't that hard or do them poorly will be filtered out and liberated to find other maybe jobs that they could do more productively and, and only the best will survive. I don't hate that as an outcome. I don't think that's the demise of humanity, though.

[Ryan]

Well, so here's the different, maybe a slight pushback. So I see two scenarios happening though, because I think you're right. I think, I think there's a lot of people like us and companies like ours who are always going to look to find the expert to go and do that. And so, yes, I totally agree with what you said. That being said at that company, whoever's leading that company, it's safe to say that they probably need half as many people as they needed before.

[Roland]

Yeah, I don't doubt that. I don't disagree with that. But, but what they will. So what they need is that goes back to the upskilling, right? You've got to upskill, but maybe everybody can't be won't, you know, won't be ready, doesn't want to, et cetera. And those people are going to have to go find other things. There will definitely be displacement. But, gosh, that's the history of our. Like to say it's the end of humanity, has to go more towards, you know, AGI, that, you know, that general intelligence kind of level. Because you mentioned buggy whips, right? All the people that were making buggy whips when cars came along and they weren't making buggies anymore, they had. Unless they were making like, you know, artisanal, you know, buggy whips for the rich that wanted to keep the buggy, you know, or the poor that couldn't afford the car. The rest of the world went to cars and they all were out of work. That's nothing new that's been going on, I think, since the inventory.

[Ryan]

I think the new thing here is it's impacting literally every single industry simultaneously, though. So that's, that's the difference here. And, and I do think that you're going to have some companies like. So you're right. Richard did it this time. He did it on a weekend. Would I rather he just be spending time with his family on the weekend instead of working on this? Yeah. At the same time as his partner put in some weekend work. Suck it up, buttercup. I don't care. We're going to get it done. We all work weekends from time to time. So it doesn't hurt my feelings either. And you know, he said the same thing. But. But, you know. But how far away from like the lowest level, you know, employee having enough knowledge of these tools because they're just learning them in school in the same way that they would learn, you know, Excel and Google Sheets. They're just learning these tools that they would just think to do that as their default setting. Like how far away are we from that? I don't think it's a year or two. It's probably not even five years. But are we 10 years? May probably 15. Almost certainly.

[Roland]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

And so that's when you can imagine a time when. Yeah. It is just as easy to go over to your. And you think about how much better it is at that point. I don't know. I'm not prepared to say that we're screwed because I think that it does. It always creates more opportunity. It just creates so much more. Anytime we get these technology leaps and unlocks, it creates more than it removes. But geez. I would just make sure that you are pursuing a path where you're providing some level of original thought, original ideas that people are pursuing. Because if you are merely an assembler of other people's ideas.

[Roland]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

Of other people's thoughts. Woof. I think you either need to be doing that or you need to be doing something manually with your hands because I still don't see AI cutting anybody's hair. I don't think that's going to be happening anytime soon.

[Roland]

I bet that happens within 10 years though.

[Ryan]

It might. We'll see how long it takes before somebody trusts a robot enough to stick their head in a machine with like blades.

[Roland]

Blades. Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan]

They call it the Edward Scissorhands. Yeah. But anyway, I don't know, like all these things. I still think the timeline is further out than most people.

[Roland]

So. So we have a good 10 years of. So basically get those vacations and live those dreams in the next 10 years before. Before you're answering to the machines. But definitely, it's definitely things to think about. There are things that you can do and action steps to take based on a lot of the things we talked about. What was the Tim Ferriss thing that he was basically the world.

[Ryan]

It was just that Chris Sacca, I mean he was going through all of the jobs that currently, you know, white collar jobs that you would go and get a college degree for. That he's saying like this will absolutely just be replaced by AI Now I don't know, you know, and the argument is like, yes, but you're going to need somebody who has some skill and some insight and some creativity to interact and engage with, you know, with that, with that AI, which I think is totally true. And the point that he was making is right. But it used to be that one person plus a room full of 10 or 12 people around them doing the actual work. You'll still have the one person. You won't have the room full of 10 or 12 people. And what does it mean when that's happening across the entire industry and you don't have any of the grunt, you know, the grinders around anymore to do this stuff. What does that mean for the economy? I guess is kind of the question that everybody's asking.

[Roland]

Yeah. Be interesting to see. Interesting to see. Cool.

[Ryan]

I think the, his, I think the prediction is that we're all going to be so productive and make so much money that the government's just going to be able to give people free money. And boy, I think that's gonna just be terrible for society.

[Roland]

That would be terrible.

[Ryan]

That would be terrible. When is that, when does that. Never. When does that not work out?

[Roland]

No, it's not gonna work.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Roland]

Well, hopefully you guys enjoyed this. I think that we've got a couple of actionable insights, particularly with respect to what do you do with your SEO situation as a brand new entrant on the scene, as an experience legacy company and as somebody that's already embraced chatbot integration. I think we've talked about actionable steps with respect to if you are an employee, you're going to have to have your eyes open for the opportunities which will be many. As we make these, you know, rapid stair step advancements through the demise of humanity. There will be lots of opportunities to upskill yourself along the way. But if you are thinking, you're going to rest on where you are right now and nothing's going to change for you and you are a conduit of information or product or assembly of anything. You might want to be looking towards what's next now so that you're not looking when everybody's looking and, and we hold hope for the, the future of humanity and that there will always be a need for that. And worst case, Everybody has all of the money all the time, and we all get along well.

[Ryan]

I've got one last tip for all the business owners out there in terms of, like, pivoting your business model. If what we've said here freaks you out and you're like, ah, but is my business going to, you know, become, you know, obsolete? Be on the lookout for these changes and these disruptions. Be ready to make a move, but don't ever move faster than your customers. Right? Don't ever move considerably faster than them. There are so many businesses that have, you know, out of, out of fear, you know, jumped well ahead of their customers and they weren't there. And so just make sure that at the end of the day, you're always serving them, looking at them, and for the love of God, get you some redneck friends who will shoot you straight.

[Roland]

Yeah, I think it's a, it's, that's a really, really good advice. And it is a generational move. This is a, you know, probably a 30 year full move. But look where we are right now, you know, as we record this 20, 25. If I look back to 1995, which was 30 years ago, I mean, we didn't have AI, but we did have the Internet and most of the jobs are still around. So it'll be interesting to see, you know, if, if, if Timmy in his robotics class and Jonathan and his AI class, you know, get us all out sooner than 30 years, I'd be really surprised. So if 30 years is beyond my, my personal horizon, really for work. So, you know, I'm okay. You probably still have to worry about it. So sorry.

[Ryan]

I think, I think we're both the.

[Roland]

AI if you found this helpful, please share it with a friend. If you did not, please keep it to yourself. And we will see you next time on Business Lunch, where I will have recovered my full wonderful studio from the gremlins that took it apart this time. You guys take care. We'll see you next.

[Ryan]

It.