• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, March 2, 2023

Microsoft created the AI-model Prometheus to combine the Bing index, ranking, and answers in search results with OpenAI’s GPT, giving the company near real-time content and data for training models.

There has been much discussion around search engine optimization (SEO) professionals creating content from ChatGPT-type models, but who is planning to use this?

Some 58% of enterprise marketers plan to use artificial intelligence (AI) to for SEO and to create content in 2023, but only 10% actively use it today to drive content generation, according to data from BrightEdge, which surveyed more than 250 enterprise marketers about their thoughts on SEOs and the future of search, AI, and content generation. This means that 58% plan to use AI for SEO this year.

People, in general, have started to experiment with using AI to create content. Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president and consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft, provided an example in the post of a father and son who developed a video-game idea with the help of Bing chat.

“They started off by creating sci-fi stories using simple prompts in chat, eventually leading to the development of a video game idea where Bing not only helped create a plot, but also generated the code to input directly into Scratch, a visual programming tool,” he wrote.

But some SEO professionals say that although the technology will spit out information, it still has issues with understanding the important work in a body of text.

Yu said the next phase of search engines will have the AI built in, so it will generate the core information, but the SEO professional still needs to remain the authoritative source.

Ninety percent of organizations are focused on prioritizing SEO. Of those marketers, 77% said the traffic received is as good or better than last year, which is interesting because some publishers complain that Google does not send enough traffic to their websites and that the engine is building in features to keep those searching from clicking through.  

About 41% of SEO professionals say search engine innovation is a major concern this year, and are focused on prioritizing SEO.

Yu points to the explosion of content on ChatGPT and search engine innovations as areas that will thrive. As a result, it will be important to gain a better understanding of how it works.

BrightEdge found that SEOs are also focusing on what they see as future challenges. Main concerns and focus around SEO for enterprise companies in 2023 include search engine updates at 41%, changing consumer behavior at 33%, technology advancements at 14%, and competitors at 12%.