Trustworthiness of reviews in the generative AI era — Jonathan Gillham // Originality.AI

Show Notes

• 02:26
  The impact of generative AI on the review sector

  The adoption of generative AI, particularly with ChatGPT, has had a significant impact on the review sector. There was a massive spike in AI-generated reviews once ChatGPT launched, with 30% of all reviews on Capterra being AI-generated.
• 03:50
  The spike in AI generated reviews since ChatGPTs launch

  Before ChatGPTs launch, the highest month was around 15% of AI-generated reviews. After its release, this figure doubled to 30% in November and peaked at 37.5% in April on Capterra, before coming back down in the following months.
• 05:27
  Possible reasons for the decrease in AI generated reviews

  Although the exact causes remain uncertain, the decline could be linked to review sites' efforts to address the problem. Extreme reviews have a higher likelihood of being AI-generated compared to average ones, with one-star and five-star reviews likely being AI-generated.
• 06:31
  The trustworthiness of reviews in the era of generative AI

  With a significant portion of reviews being well-written and convincing but potentially AI-generated, trust in online reviews has become more challenging.
• 07:43
  The response of publishers to AI bots

  Since OpenAI announced how to block its GPT bot, about 25%-27% of the top 1000 websites have blocked it. This raises questions for SEOs about the potential exclusion from a traffic source, which is probably why the number of Google-Extended blocks is lower.
• 09:31
  The blocking of AI bots on websites

  The 27% of websites blocking AI bots are implementing full blocking, with most choosing to either block all bot access or allow it entirely. Partial blocking is rare, though the bot owners have indicated that they won't crawl content behind paywalls.
• 10:10
  Full blocking vs. partial blocking of AI bots

  The prevalence of full blocking rather than partial blocking of AI bots may partly be due to the robots.txt. This has been a long-standing method for indicating what crawlers can access on your site but lacks nuanced options for partial access control.
• 11:02
  How Originality AI ranked the top 1000 websites in its study

  The top 1000 websites in the study were sorted by organic traffic. Their ranking list was derived from dataforseo.coms top 1000 list thats focused on sites by traffic.
• 11:27
  The growing awareness of blocking AI bots among website owners

  The GPT bot release by OpenAI raised awareness of the need to block bots, prompting 27% of websites to do so within two months. Common Crawl blocking also increased from 5% to 15%, and more websites are considering blocking Anthropic's bot.
• 13:29
  Top websites and their responses to changing search dynamics

  Many top 1000 websites, which are less dependent on Google for traffic, are blocking AI bots. These websites are taking a risk-off approach, considering nuanced solutions, and some are pursuing legal action to ensure fair compensation for access to their data.