#17: The iGaming Search Revolution That Wasn't

AI replacing traditional search has been the hot topic that's had the iGaming industry on edge for a while now. Everyone's been predicting how AI is going to revolutionise the search world. Well, guess what? The revolution hasn't quite arrived—at least not in the way everyone expected.

Don't misunderstand me. AI is a big deal, no doubt about it. But when it comes to how people search for information? It's barely made a dent in established behaviours.

I've been saying this for a while, and I'll admit, I got some sceptical looks. But recent research is backing up my stance. Sonata Insights and SparkToro just released a report with some interesting findings on this topic. And let me tell you, it's quite revealing.

So, today, I’ll explore why AI hasn't dramatically altered search patterns and why our industry might need to recalibrate its expectations. Of course, it's gonna fuck up some sites in SERP, but that's another story, sorry.

The Current State of AI in Search

Generative AI has been making its way into search engines with bold promises of transforming how we interact with search results. Sonata Insights has some intriguing numbers for us: 37% of U.S. respondents find AI-enhanced search results more satisfying, and 55% believe AI will make discovering products and services easier.

On the surface, these figures might suggest AI is making significant inroads. But let's not jump to conclusions just yet.

Despite the positive perceptions, the actual impact on consumer behaviour seems to be rather limited. The adoption of AI platforms is growing but at a less-than-revolutionary pace. By May 2024, only 16.45% of traditional search engine users also used AI platforms. That's a modest 2% increase from the previous year.

Google's Dominance in Search

Despite the AI hype, Google continues to dominate the search engine market. It maintains a powerful position with a significant share of desktop and mobile search traffic.

Sonata Insights' analysis shows that Google's metrics aren't just stable - they're improving. From May 2023 to May 2024, the average number of searches per desktop user on Google increased by 10.4%. That's noteworthy growth in a market that's supposedly being disrupted.

What does this tell us? It suggests that user habits in search are deeply entrenched. People are comfortable with Google and are not easily swayed by new alternatives, even ones powered by AI.

Gambling Search Behavior: Consistency Over Time

Now, let’s narrow the focus to gambling. You'd think that with all these fancy AI tools popping up, punters would change how they search for their next big win. But nope. Turns out, gambling enthusiasts are sticking to their guns when it comes to finding info and services online.

The Sonata Insights report doesn't specifically call out gambling search trends. But reading between the lines, it's pretty clear that across the board, people are dragging their feet when it comes to changing their search habits. 

If you think about user behaviour in iGaming, it is either very brand-driven or research/reviews-driven, depending on the country and its stage of development.

Look at the US market:

You can see that online casino search queries are quite big… until you look at some of the top brand dynamics:

Whoops. It is not even close. How will AI help in this case? I guess the answer is - it will not. Players are sticking to what they know. They’re not looking for a chatbot to tell when and where to place their bets; they’re using brands they trust or diving into reviews.

In this instance, AI isn’t solving a problem that exists for these users. 

The Time Required for Behavioral Shifts

Look, changing how people behave isn't like flipping a switch. It's more like trying to turn a cruise ship - it takes time and a whole lot of effort. We're talking about habits that have been baked into people's brains for decades.

Research shows that for people to really change how they do things, especially with new tech, they need to go through a whole process. First, they need to know it exists. Then they might give it a shot. But for it to stick? That takes regular use over a long time.

Now, when you've got a behemoth like Google that people use every day and trust implicitly, that process gets even tougher. Most people don't even say "search" anymore - they say "Google it". That's how deep it goes.

Sure, Google has started to embed some AI into their search. They might even buy up Perplexity. But getting people to change their habits? That's still a tough nut to crack.

We've seen this before. Remember how long it took for online shopping to really make a dent in brick-and-mortar stores? More than a decade. AI in search is likely to follow a similar, slow-burn path to adoption.

The Nuanced Impact of AI

The Sonata Insights report shows that users supplement search with AI rather than replace search. 

Users are using AI tools out of curiosity or for specific tasks. It probably hasn’t helped that AI is famous for hallucinations, so factual information cannot be trusted. Of course, that’s not to say a search result can be trusted because it may have been written by AI anyway :) But there’s more trust there. Because a user can look at multiple results and use their own judgement on the sources they’re presented with.

I also don’t think people consider common LLMs like Chat GPT or Claude knowledge bots. It may have been the case when they launched because they reverted to what they knew. But there’s more understanding now that LLMs are reasoning tools. They work much better if you feed them information and ask them to do tasks based on that information.

The engagement levels with AI platforms are significantly lower than those with Google. For instance, while Perplexity's user base has grown, it still represents a tiny fraction of Google's search traffic. This disparity highlights the challenge AI platforms face in shifting consumer behaviour on a large scale.

We’re definitely in the “Trough of Disillusionment” phase of the Gartner Hype cycle when it comes to AI. Users will use it less “out of curiosity” after figuring out this “magic tool” isn’t changing their life at the snap of their fingers. But until the use cases are clearer, there’s less friction with the product, and you don’t need to be a skilled user to get it to behave how you want… it’s back to the drawing board, and search is safe.

Conclusion…

It’s fair to say that any behavioural shift from traditional search towards AI may take some time if it comes at all. And in iGaming, it’s unclear whether there’s any use case for it because AI doesn’t currently solve a problem given the user’s search behaviour.

With that said - I’m really excited about other use cases of AI, and I think it can give us a life of abundance where our AI clones are working for us online while we’re wasting time doing something else :)