Search GPT Launches: What does this mean for Healthcare?

7th Nov 2024

With 85% of HCPs using Google to access medical journals, and in another recent survey 56% saying they felt AI would positively impact their learning, the online environment is clearly an important space for pharmaceutical marketing, and AI tools represent both a challenge and an opportunity. 

Here, we take a look at SearchGPT within a healthcare context, looking at some of the initial testing from Varn Health and what it may mean for your strategy. 

1. Good quality content tends to shine through on searches

Good quality content is essential for SEO because it enhances user engagement, credibility, and search engine rankings. When content provides real value—answering questions, solving problems, or offering unique insights—users are more likely to stay on the page, which signals relevance to search engines like Google. 

Quality content also naturally attracts backlinks, a key ranking factor, and incorporates keywords in a way that feels authentic and engaging. This helps search engines understand the topic while maintaining readability. Overall, quality content improves the user experience and supports SEO goals by boosting visibility, credibility, and traffic, leading to long-term online success.

With all that being said, it’s good to see that, for the most part, quality content tends to rank well across different search engines and different AI tools. Google and other tools want to serve accurate information, and they will optimise to make sure they do this. 

Our ‘pharma SEO’ page is a great example of this, helpful content that is shining through across platforms. 

This is not always the case from our initial testing on Search GPT, as shown below. 

2. Results need to be fact-checked

When comparing results for SearchGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Bing Deep Search, we noticed some insurances in some of the content, which is expected when it comes to AI-driven content. We took the term ‘biggest 5 pharmaceutical companies in the UK’, all 3 of the models returned results based on market capitalisation, and all 3 showed some differences when we compared it to the actual results shown on Statistica. 

Red shows where there were companies listed that were not in the top 5 as of October 2024. Google AI Overviews was the most accurate, but it was interesting to note the differences between SearchGPT and Bing Deep Search. Google pulled results from Statistica, and PharmiWebJobs, the latter of which is incorrect as it was content created earlier in 2024. 

SearchGPT also pulled content from a combination of Simply Wallstreet and Statistica, whilst Bing Deep Search pulled all of its content from a website called Pharmchoices. The Simply Wall St content ranked 8th in the Bing Index, whilst Pharmchoices ranked 20th. Pharmijobs ranked 3rd and Statistica 1st. When comparing this to the Google Index, Simply Wall St and Pharmchoice did not appear in the top 100, whilst Statistica and PharmiWebJobs appeared first and second, respectively. 

Always fact-check content from search overviews, regardless of the model. Google appears to be winning the accuracy race, at least for now.

Key Takeaways: 

• Get in touch with an expert in AI SEO for more strategic and detailed support. 

• Always fact-check results when you are using SearchGPT and other LLMs 

• Optimise your content, it’s not just search engines looking for it now and these tools are becoming an increasingly important way of reaching HCPs. 

Stay updated on AI developments in search and how they impact healthcare by signing up for our newsletter or follow us on LinkedIn. If you want some advice about how to stay ahead of the changes we are seeing with the advancements in AI powered search, do get in touch with our expert Varn Health team.