Most people use Google for answers, not to find websites. We who do are in the minority.
I think the real threat from ChatGPT comes from the fact that Microsoft is involved. Google is their main competitor so it's clear that after years of Bing being a not-quite-as-good-as-google search engine, they see a completely different direction opening up to dethrone them.
This technology is only going to get better, and it will do so quickly. I think the era of sifting through millions of crappy, overly SEO'd sites to skim around for an answer - is coming to an end.
Imagine Microsoft puts ChatGPT into Microsoft 365. You're a Fortune 500 company, you have zillions of SharePoint sites over many departments. Your employees can now ask ChatGPT about them. To find documents by vague search terms, to summarize them, to write in the style of one. Remember how it used to be a thing where non-technical people would ask Google queries as if it was a person, and technical people would say 'no no, think about the keywords'. Imagine you can do this chatty back and forth narrowing down with vague terms, searching your work's SharePoint:
Prompt: What was the film with the silly detective and like a Purple Lion or whatever?
ChatGPT: The film you're thinking of might be "Scooby-Doo," which features a silly detective named Shaggy and his talking Great Dane named Scooby-Doo, who often dress up in costumes to solve mysteries involving supposedly supernatural creatures.
Prompt: no with real actors
ChatGPT: You might be referring to "Scooby-Doo" (2002) starring Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Linda Cardellini, Matthew Lillard and Rowan Atkinson, which was a live-action adaptation of the classic cartoon.
Prompt: no the coloured animal was in the name
ChatGPT: The movie you're thinking of might be "The Pink Panther" (1963) starring Peter Sellers as the bumbling French police detective Jacques Clouseau.
Only it's about "What was that report from someone in the sales team, with the white paper about plants?" or "Where's that HR document about the training website with the health and safety stuff?" or "Who manages the team who deal with XYZ customer?" or etc.
I think the real threat from ChatGPT comes from the fact that Microsoft is involved. Google is their main competitor so it's clear that after years of Bing being a not-quite-as-good-as-google search engine, they see a completely different direction opening up to dethrone them.
This technology is only going to get better, and it will do so quickly. I think the era of sifting through millions of crappy, overly SEO'd sites to skim around for an answer - is coming to an end.