Matthew Widdop
Matty is a Junior SEO Executive at Intelligency, helping our clients to improve their digital performance. Matty is currently studying for his Level 3 Multi-Channel Marketer apprenticeship and has completed a Sport Journalism Degree at the University of Huddersfield.
Google has been sued by Chegg, an educational support services company, for impacting their profit and sustainability due to Google’s usage of AI overviews. Chegg argues that Google’s introduction of AI Overviews into the SERP has seen a drastic decrease in traffic to their site.
How AI Overviews impacted Chegg
Chegg provides students with homework help and test answers, which means much of their traffic would have been earned from informational search queries. This is especially damaging as AI Overviews focus on targeting users who are using informational search queries, trying to keep users on Google rather than using third party sites. Chegg argues that Google has monopolised the search market which means Chegg has to supply them with content in order to be included in search results, this in turn means Google can display Chegg’s content without having to send users to the source.
Other factors affecting Chegg
After seeing a large traffic boost in COVID, with students working from home, Chegg have been facing financial struggles since the introduction of AI generative chat bots. Chegg’s traffic is 49% down in January from where it was this time last year and with chatbots continually increasing in popularity it would be a hard case for Chegg to leave the blame solely at Google’s feet. Chegg CEO, Dan Rosenweig openly admitted in 2023 that ChatGPT was having an impact on their traffic.
What this means for marketers
If Chegg were to win their case against Google this could open up a huge legal battle for the tech giant as it would set a precedent for any companies being affected by AI Overviews, to sue Google. However, the likelihood is Chegg will have a very tough legal battle ahead and AI overviews are likely to ramp up in the future with more features being added, targeting different search queries rather than just informational, which could have a much larger impact for all marketers across the globe.
