Is OpenAI Using Google's Playbook? If So, Here's What Happens Next

So, OpenAI, they have just announced it is launching a web browser. This one is called Atlas. Now, already, this has sparked a lot of different conversations around things like privacy and subscription models and monetisation strategies that they’re using. But for me, it is just another shiny object to distract us all. But when I saw the news today, I did see something completely different from all of those things. I kept thinking that it feels like a bit of a history lesson, and that history is starting to repeat itself.

From what I can see, and from what I’ve experienced in my career in marketing, it honestly feels like OpenAI is pulling a page directly from Google’s playbook, and a strategy that Google used over two decades ago when it was building its empire. So can looking at the history of Google actually then give us a bit of an indication onto what’s coming next with OpenAI, and how they’re going to be releasing their products over time? That’s what we’re going to have a look at today.

If we haven’t met before, welcome to For The Daring Growth Seekers podcast. My name is Jordan McFadyen, and this podcast is here to help you navigate this cluttered world of marketing in the AI era. And as I mentioned in the intro there, today we’re going to try to break down what OpenAI is really doing with its new browser called Atlas.

Now, I’ve been waiting for this to be released for a while. So I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and been writing a lot of this podcast even in the weeks leading up to this announcement. And because, as I said in the intro, one of the big things that I’ve noticed is just how much it appears to be mirroring what we saw with Google’s rise to power. And most importantly, what changes that means it’s going to make to your marketing strategy as well. Because even though it’s just a new browser, I do think this opens up a whole new question, because we are looking at this whole big powerhouse.

We have said this a lot in this podcast as well, that the way that we are having to all adapt our businesses and our marketing strategies over the past year is massively changing, because of the way that consumers are starting to actually search online, because that is changing. So we’re needing to pause and learn and adapt our strategies. And again, I think the release of this, essentially this version of Google Chrome, which is what we’ve been using as a browser for so long, it’s just been launched. So we need to start thinking about what does this actually mean to us? And I think you’ll be surprised by some of the things that we’ll discuss today as well.

So, let’s get into it. Firstly, to understand exactly what OpenAI is actually doing, I first just want to quickly look back as to what Google did. Because remember that Google’s dominance, obviously it was a well-executed strategy. It was definitely not an accident. It was, to be fair, brilliantly executed. And it appeared to be like it was a step-by-step plan. I know probably behind the scenes it was a complete mess. But from looking back on it now, it looks as though it was a really strategic decision.

Remember, they essentially, as a company, created a term that we now use when we want to search or research something online: just Google it. So it’s a bit of a powerhouse for us to have a think about, and to learn from how they executed that, and how that’s going to potentially help shape what OpenAI is doing with ChatGPT and now their Atlas browser as well.

So the first thing that Google did was they created an unmissable tool. Google, obviously. Back in the late 90s, internet was a bit of a mess. Kind of like what it is now, let’s be fair. Google Search came along and was just so much better than anything else when it came to the default way to be able to find information. And this obviously attracted and held a lot of user attention in the late 90s.

And that then came into the evolution of step two, which was essentially then they started to build their money-making machine around that attention that they created around search and discovery. And they launched AdWords. Obviously, now we know that as Google Ads. And instead of just building a platform with annoying banner ads, what they instead sold was relevance, and actually letting businesses bid on keywords to be embedded into their search platform that they had built.

They essentially created this really powerful cycle, really. More users on their platform searching meant more advertisers, which then meant more money for Google to make the search tool even better and grow the company over time. So that’s essentially what they did with their monetisation. And obviously, Google Ads was a massive part of that.

Then they moved into step three, which I think is the crucial bit that I want to touch on today, in today’s podcast: then they moved into controlling how people actually accessed their service, their search service. And pretty early on, obviously, Google realised that they were pretty dependent on other companies’ browsers. So this is going back to the days of Internet Explorer. And as a company, this was a big risk for Google. So what did they do? They built Google Chrome, which has become, again, synonymous with what we access the internet on day to day right now.

Then as mobile took over, they did the exact same thing by building out Android. They seized, and they really built and played on, the distribution channel. So you have the core tool, which was Google search, and search and discovery. They then built that cash engine around that, which was advertising. And then finally, they controlled how people actually access that entire tool, to essentially build this global dominance. And that is honestly kind of like the very abridged version of the Google playbook.

So if we take a step now and have a look at OpenAI, honestly, I feel as though it seems and sounds really familiar. Okay, so let’s think about OpenAI. Step one for them, they built this unmissable tool. And that was AI models. Specifically, it was ChatGPT. And already, very similar, we’re seeing that with how people talk about using AI right now. It’s kind of like, oh, I’ll just go ask ChatGPT about that type of thing. Or, I’m using ChatGPT much more often. So it’s becoming synonymous with using an AI tool, and search and discovery. And ChatGPT obviously has completely changed the way that we interact and gather information and help do our work as well. So that was their version of the attraction piece.

So then step two, if we have a look at OpenAI, they then started to think about that money-making machine. And this is what I still think that they are still building out now, currently using subscription models. Obviously, you can subscribe for better access to their tools. But it’s not just about subscriptions. They are exploring advertising for free users. They’re testing that with certain advertisers right now. Very similar to what Google did back in the days with Google Ads as well: starting to test with large-scale advertisers, and then pretty quickly it rolled out. So we’re going to keep a real close eye on advertising within OpenAI and ChatGPT models.

But the interesting thing I also see is what they are calling essentially agentic monetisation. Okay? Have I lost you so far? Because it does get a little bit tricky, but it also makes complete sense as well. Because imagine if you’re using OpenAI’s new browser and you’re using AI to help book your flight. And instead of you going to search and finding a few links and clicking on a flight provider, which is what we do on Google right now, this AI is actually going to go and do that whole process for you. And then OpenAI takes literally a small commission from it.

So this is kind of what they’re trying to build in the background. It’s like an AI transaction tax. The AI is getting paid for doing the task, but not actually showing you an ad. And honestly, I think this is a massive shift to what they’re talking about. And then finally, if we go back to step three, they are also starting to control this distribution channel with this Atlas browser that they’ve released just recently.

So an AI agent is obviously limited if it is stuck in a browser window on Chrome, for example. And that’s why they’re launching Atlas, their browser. And it’s not just a version of Chrome with ChatGPT bolted on. It is literally a browser built from the ground up using ChatGPT, to be able to use an AI agent at its absolute core. So can you see what I mean already? They are very similar paths towards that, essentially, that global domination.

However, I do think there are some lessons between both paths of OpenAI and Google that we can learn about, and we can potentially see where OpenAI is heading based on what Google have done 20 years ago. So the big question then is, taking everything we’ve spoken about so far into account, what does this actually mean for us as marketers and business owners, and for leaders in our space?

Firstly, that whole concept of driving traffic to a website, we’ve been saying this for ages, but it is becoming even more of a vanity metric. We’re seeing this across multiple industries right now. The signs that we’re seeing now is that we’re moving from a search-and-click type of internet to essentially a tell-and-do type of internet. And I think that’s a really important shift that we need to start getting our head around, and understanding about where things are actually heading.

So for you, this may mean that your marketing goal is no longer just to get a click, but it’s about how to be seen, or be chosen as AI’s chosen answer. And again, we’ve known about this, but not really to the full extent that we are starting to see these patterns emerge now.

The second thing is that advertising is going to change, and we need to be aware of that, and we need to be able to adapt to that pretty quickly as well. So already we’re seeing this: instead of just bidding on keywords like, I don’t know, “emergency plumber”, ads will continue to become more and more hyper-contextual, essentially. So Google is already building this out with its tools like AI Max and Performance Max, where now, as advertisers and marketers, we are focusing on search themes and the data related around a theme, as opposed to just a single keyword. And that’s something we’re already navigating and already working through with a lot of different accounts right now.

So obviously, OpenAI is seeing that pattern and they are also pivoting. Google’s obviously seeing the pattern, they’re starting to pivot as well. And essentially what’s happening is an AI will understand the entire conversation that you as a user is actually having. It’s going to have a much better understanding about your exact problem, things like your budget and your urgency to be able to solve that problem as well, based on the data that they have on you, because it’s an incredible amount of data that they have.

And even more so, if you’re using a browser like Atlas, you’re essentially giving ChatGPT every little piece of data. Anything that you search, anything that you read online is helping to feed that piece about you, essentially. So it is becoming less about keywords and more about being the perfect solution at that exact moment.

But the third thing, and this is the fascinating one as well, that I’ve just described there, is around that privacy piece. Google’s whole empire, when we look at that, was built on collecting our data to then be able to sell ads. So that’s essentially how, as marketers, we’ve been able to make sure that we can build really targeted ads that really fit to our target demographics and people who have got certain interests.

And from what I can see, OpenAI has had an opportunity to offer just a slightly different deal here, because what they could do is they could actually position this Atlas browser as a privacy-focused choice, where it’s all about being private and everything like that. But their model potentially might be, pay a small subscription or pay a commission and we’ll do the work for you, not for the advertisers, type thing. And that could be an interesting way that they could have a look at how to use this Atlas model and build a different kind of trust with users.

But from what I can see so far, I don’t believe that’s going to be the case. Using the browser, obviously, it’s going to come at a cost to your privacy, from what I can see so far, which then starts potentially a whole new podcast topic of what is privacy online these days, and do we still care as much as what we used to?

So our jobs as marketers is evolving quite a bit, and we’re using the patterns that we’ve seen take place in history, as Google have built out their empire, to help us determine our next moves as well. And again, I think it’s thinking about that is less about keyword research and more about how do you continue to build brand authority in your chosen niche, or your chosen product or service. And questions that I’d be getting you to ask right now is: how do you make sure that an AI agent knows that your business exists, that it’s trusted, that it’s credible, that it’s actually helpful, the most helpful choice in your industry?

And this goes back to those fundamentals. And we cover this all the time, and I think it’s worth us chatting about here as well: getting genuine mentions on reputable sites, encouraging things like customer reviews, all the basics, creating clear, helpful content that is directly answering your customers’ questions as well. So the reputation piece, your reputation, is becoming honestly one of your most valuable marketing assets, because that is what the AI models are learning from. And it’s about trying to connect what the AI models know about your business with all that data that it is gathering from tools like this Atlas browser, and all that information that users are actually giving those tools.

And so if we look back at history, we know that all of these changes that we’re talking about, they’re not going to happen overnight. But I think that the launch of this brand new Atlas browser from OpenAI, I think that it is a clear signal of where the internet is potentially heading. Actually having an AI agent built into a browser is a pretty clear indication about what’s actually happening. And we know that Google is not going to be far behind, or building something very similar, which it kind of has, using Google’s AI Mode within a Google search right now. And it just feels as though the whole playbook that we’ve described in today’s podcast is literally being run again.

But this time, I think that the game is just likely to be centred around AI agents actually doing a lot of that search for you, as opposed to just being shown a list of 10 blue links that we make the choice for. So the question I see is no longer about how do we rank on Google, but the question should now be, how do we become AI’s go-to?

So if you want help navigating the shift, obviously you can find all of our different resources and podcasts on our website, including our AI marketing workshops that we’re launching and running all the time. You can find all that over at donebynine.com. And as always, if you’ve found anything in part in this podcast today useful or helpful, best way to support our content is to be able to share it with someone in your network. Please consider giving us a review on whatever podcast platform you’re listening to us from. And we’ll see you on the next episode of For The Daring Growth Seekers.