The future of Search Engines!

You can skip to 'My vision for a future search engine' if you want to skip the retrospective of what we have today :- )

What we have today:

Google

Pros:

• Simple to use search options, text, image, news, shopping, videos, etc

• Advanced algorithms that provide accurate results

• Over a trillion different reference points for search results

Cons

• Doesn't give an actual answer - but links to places that might have it

• Google will show links that may answer your question, but does not make an effort to show alternative opinions

ChatGPT

Pros

• Gives a direct answer to a wide range of queries - and can adopt a persona based on the type of answer you want. i.e. A university lecturer, a 5 year old, industry SME etc.

• Natural language understanding and adaptability

• No Ads!!! :- )

Cons

• It does not give specific references on the results it is showing you - other than it has ingested a large number of data sets

• It cannot give an indication on how biased its own answer is, based on the data it has ingested itself

The future of search engines, and my wish list:

1. Simple search bar: A bar that allows me to ask a question in any way I wish. (As the current ChatGPT search engine allows me to do)

2. Persona-based tabs: Build a persona profile for your needs, i.e. IT Architect, New Parent, Medical Student etc.

3. Links to grouped references: View the themes, groups and, categories that have formulated your answer. What was the weighting of the references, what source have they come from etc.

Below is a pie chart that shows how the information could be represented for a tech-research based query:

4. Bias measurement: Bias chart to show its main influences that have contributed to the answer. A key feature would be to see how the answer changes as I move the weighting across the matrix chart - giving me a view on the changes that each influence provides.

Example: News on Sustainability will be different depending on the geography you are interested in. The challenges, narrative and approach for North America will be vastly different to South Asia.

5. Proactive query qualification: Based on the data available - prompts on next best question, or further qualifying questions could prompt more sophisticated user interaction. Not to mention, locks the user in as they gain far more value than they anticipated (win for the platform)!

i.e. 'How big is the sun?' - The sun is X big - do you want to see a video of our sun compared to the planets?, 'Do you want to know the biggest star in our galaxy?'. Add a bit of industry buzzwords into this and you'll have your own mini-consultant!

6. Learning consumption settings: Have settings to control how you are given information - i.e. I like my videos, video podcasts, blogs, communities etc. Show me information that will help me move forward.

Can you think of any other features you'd want in a search engine? Let me know - I'm curious.