Before all the current excitement around generative and conversational AI, Yext CDO Christian Ward spent the last few Localogy Summit keynotes talking about a new tool called DALL-E that no one had yet heard of. Now he’s back in the midst of the AI boom to break down its impact on local search.

Key Takeaways

Here are a few key messages or insights that we gleaned from this session.

• Large language models basically work by developing a probabilistic model of the next word to come in a given sentence.
• This has led to conversational AI, which in turn has been positioned as a potential “Google killer” in that it will take share of how people obtain knowledge online.
• This may throw a wrench into Google’s search model for SERP-based sponsored links, but it will figure that part out.
• The bigger issue is Google’s ability to own the customer journey… and it will make damn sure it doesn’t lose that. It will be Google’s biggest priority in the coming era. The ad model will follow.
• Google has gotten flak for being behind on AI, but it has more assets and training sets (indexed text and multimedia), than anyone for AI positioning. The flak has just been a matter of timing of R&D versus go-to-market. The latter is coming.

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Generative AI and the Future of Local Search

Generative AI is all the rage, given high-profile disruptive tools like DALL-E2 and Chat GPT. But who will be the disrupted parties? Many are pointing to search. We talk to an expert about how AI could help or hurt search.

Christian Ward, YEXT