ChatGPT Removes Medical, Financial & Legal Advice – What Does This Mean For Search?

Within the last year ChatGPT has (to put it lightly) taken over! Some would say that the phrase is no longer “just Google it” as the Microsoft partnered LLM has/is taking a decent sized chunk of the search market.

(We’re often hearing people say “To find something, use Google, to learn something use ChatGPT”)

SEO’s and other marketing professionals have been spending the last year scrambling to understand how best we can optimise and utilise ChatGPT’s functions to position our brands in front of users (AEO).

But the recent OpenAI news to clamp down on users seeking legal, medical and financial advice could deter users and marketers from putting “all their eggs in ChatGPT’s basket”.

If OpenAI are restricting ChatGPT from processing and relaying these forms of advice to users, then how much of the market will they be giving up?

It is no surprise to SEO’s and others around the web that an estimated total of 5% of all Google searches are health-related. A 2024 paper found a total of 72% of German people had used online search for health-related information.

(not to mention the age ol’ joke in SEO “searching symptoms online only proves which disease has the best SEO”)

Health-related online searches are very popular for users. Which could result in a major drop in potential search engine market if the OpenAI news were to be true.

Perhaps it’s because of our experience in the industry, but our first instinct when seeking legal advice is to search online for ‘highly rated legal services near me’. It seems we are not alone in this approach.

According to research, 96% of people begin their journey for legal advice with a search engine.

Additionally, user behaviour suggests that most users searching for legal advice heavily rely on online tools and reviews before they make contact.

Given this information, I would assume it’s safe to say that users are not fully reliant on AI for legal battles (AI Vs. AI) just yet.

Organic financial search covers a wide range of topics, from loan and mortgage payments to tax preparation and general banking tips and advice.

In 2023, it was estimated that a total of $23.6 Billion was spent on digital advertising within the financial sector. With reports of 41% of all web traffic coming through organic search.

It’s also worth mentioning the success stories (and horror stories) of people trusting AI and specifically ChatGPT with investment advice/running investment accounts. AI is being used to inform large financial decisions, which if incorrect, could create cause for legal action.

From our own (and others) testing, it doesn’t look like anything has been banned. The only thing users are reporting is that ChatGPT are no longer offering “official advice”. So, it appears business as usual.

From our research, it appears ChatGPT follows the general principle for the majority of AI’s/ LLM’s. To avoid liability for any large medical, legal or financial loss, AI is programmed to provide information without giving regulated advice as part of their model specification.

Well, for the most part, nothing!

ChatGPT is still going to provide the same service that it served before; it’s use is still continuing to grow and its dominance on the search engine market will continue to grow.

If you’re a marketeer in any of these three spaces, then your expertise, knowledge and most importantly your job is currently safe from being replaced by AI (Skynet).

Equally, it’s important to recognise the evolution of search, and more specifically how your customers search. If you’re still operating a “google only” search strategy, you’re already behind the market. Users, in B2B and B2C industries, are expanding their discovery across Google or other search engines, LLMs like ChatGPT and social search.

ChatGPT and other AI/LLM’s will continue to provide information based on these sectors, however, we can see future updates will avoid giving specific advice.

Users might notice their AI prompts being met with a disclaimer either above or underneath Chat’s usual response.

Well, no.

As AI’s and LLM’s continue to get more advanced, and whilst users become ever more dependant on them for daily tasks (will the future be more Walle or Terminator?). We will depend on AI’s such as ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews for more.

There have been speculations that “AI is coming to take all of our jobs”, and although this may (or may not) be true, recent developments do show that certain sectors are out of harms way for a short while.

Making sure that you position your business ahead of the competition, whether that be through AI search or through more traditional forms of digital marketing are still vital for current growth and future growth.