Generative Artificial Intelligence Changing How Consumers Access Information About Food

The Managing Director of Canadian Food Focus says generative artificial intelligence is changing the way consumers access information about their food.
Canadian Food Focus, located at canadianfoodfocus.org, is committed to providing consumer education and delivering science-based information on how food is grown and raised.

Dorothy Long, the Managing Director of Canadian Food Focus, says a priority is strengthening the organization's digital presence and ensuring it’s using platforms that consumers are using, be it Instagram or Tic Tok or others.

Quote-Dorothy Long-Canadian Food Focus:

This past year generative AI really came to the forefront and is changing the way consumers are looking for their information. Now, when a consumer goes to the internet and asks a question on line, those various AI platforms like Google or Chat GPT are providing the answer and current research shows that 70 percent of consumers are taking the information that AI provides them and then searching no further.What that really means for us is that if our platforms aren't the ones that generative AI is choosing to provide their answers then we risk becoming invisible. 

But fortunately, this generative AI likes our content because it's science based, because it's developed by experts and because it's meeting those consumers where they're at. So, at this moment Canadian Food Focus really has the highest opportunity of being the source over all the other food and farm web sites in Canada to provide those answers to generative AI if we have the content.

Long says Canadian Food Focus is working to strengthen its social media engagement from a technical side and ensuring it has answers to consumer questions.
She suggests, at the moment, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google are more likely to source answers to consumers questions from Canadian Food Focus than from an agriculturally based web site.