Google’s Search Algorithm Favors Brands Over ChatGPT in Results: Study

A report by British performance marketing agency Roast revealed that Google Bard tends to mention specific brand names in search results about traveling in the UK more often than OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The test included the responses of both conversational generative AI to the 500 most frequent questions about UK travel. Bard’s responses included brand names in 43.2% of its answers, while ChatGPT’s did so in just 14.4%. Moreover, Bard’s answers tended to be more detailed, with tables, bulleted lists, and pros and cons listed out. However, most of the responses from both AI did not mention brands, which could hurt businesses’ search engine optimization and reduce traffic and purchases. Despite the potential impact on marketers, Bard and ChatGPT vastly outperformed the most popular voice assistants and answered 98% and 99% of the 500 questions, respectively.