Recent news from Google shows the number of apps on the Android Google Play Store has almost halved from 3.4 million to 1.8 million, down 47%, as customers get fed up with low-quality, spammy, AI-generated, clone apps clogging up content categories.
This follows on from both Nintendo and Sony cleaning out similar offenders in their video game stores for the Switch and PlayStation consoles. Gamers face endless clones of AI-generated cards and “adventure” games, and while adults might easily spot them, they’re a blight on the lives of younger players. All gamers find them a source of frustation, as they look for new or specific games.
While AI will continue to rise and add value in the business landscape. In the consumer world, people are already fighting against a poor customer experience, and the gatekeepers to stores are starting to take action.
Update: Keeping this theme going, Nintendo has also altered how it ranks its eShop charts to deprioritise any shovelware that does get near the front due to large numbers of cheap downloads. Instead, Nintendo’s charts will reorder around revenue.
The next AI content battleground
The next port of call as far as consumers are concerned will be the terrible quality and quantity of AI-generated dross content on “news” and entertainment websites.
The likes of Facebook and X have gone from socially useful sites to spam-sharing content farms. While news sites are fast switching to an AI-generated content model that produces typically unreadable content thanks to the cookie-cutter approach and a blitz of adverts.
The aim is to encourage consumers to subscribe to make the ugly features go away. But as more digital media brands go bust or are consumed and acquired by surviving outfits, at some point the realisation that quality has a place, even for free, should drive clarity in the market.
Google (again) is at work, by reducing the search value of fake and low-quality news sites. But the audience are taking matters into their own hands, with Gen Z switching to podcasts and other sources for news and media.
Watch this space (number 7 will blow you away) as content providers reappraise their approach to media and news. A recent BBC report focuses on “the 5is – internet-only, intelligent, intermediated, interactive, immersive” suggesting that while “all user interaction will be driven by artificial intelligence”, user trust will remain a key focal point for media brands.