Now that the election is over, the autopsy can begin. Even the approximate numbers are interesting to consider, as this is the first election in which AI chatbots played a significant role in voters' information diet. For example, OpenAI says it has directed ChatGPT's roughly 2 million users to look elsewhere.
It not only gave them the cold shoulder, but recommended reliable news sources such as Reuters and the Associated Press. ChatGPT responded with this type of “I'm just an AI, please read the real news” response more than 2 million times on Election Day, and the next day, OpenAI explained in a blog post update about its approach to elections. did.
In the month leading up to the election, ChatGPT sent nearly 1 million people to CanIVote.org to ask questions about voting. And interestingly, it also rejected around 250,000 requests to generate images of candidates during the same period.
As a comparison, AI search engine Perplexity has gone big in promoting its own election information hub, which the company claims has brought in about 4 million pageviews (according to Bloomberg).
It is difficult to determine whether this number is low or high. True, they are far from news leaders. CNN's digital properties saw about 67 million unique visitors on Election Day and similar numbers the next day.
But traffic is a tricky metric at the best of times. The important thing this year is not that CNN got 10x the traffic from these two AI platforms combined, but that it only got 10x the traffic. Millions of people were curious enough and trusted enough AI companies to at least ask about their knowledge of elections or give it a try.
While OpenAI's strategy may have been a safe one, and Perplexity may have made a successful risky bet, the AI industry as a whole is probably in a better position to believe that none of the big brands (with the exception of xAI, of course) have made any major blunders. You will be delighted with the fact. Users found these chatbots and AI-powered platforms valuable as an Election Day resource.
Fortunately for them, this particular election, controversial as it was, was relatively conclusive, with few gray areas such as disputed outcomes, recounts, or lawsuits. Had the 2020 election been held this week, the results might not have been as good.