Here’s something I’m relatively certain about: Virtually of all the readers of this newsletter have heard of the scary new reality just emerging: It’s called “Google Zero” or any number of other names. Here’s the crux. With the emergence—and now near dominance—of AI-generated blurbs in response to search results, the natural result is less website traffic from searches. And less traffic inevitably means less ad revenue, and possibly fewer event registrations and subscriptions.
Some brands rely on search traffic for as much as 50% of their overall organic traffic. The range typically runs from the teens to a bit less than 50%. But in barely a year, the search ecosystem has been totally upended. If searchers get the answer they’re looking for from the AI-generated summaries, there’s no need to click through. For some, that’s cataclysmic.
In fact, I’ll bet everyone reading this story has found their own personal pattern has been fewer click-throughs and more of, “Okay, this gives me what I need.”
Combine the emergence of AI summaries with the Facebook decision a few years ago to shift away from news content, and the loss of X as a reliable news dissemination platform, and you have a perfect storm, the New York Magazine media columnist Charlotte Klein wrote in July. “It seems all spigots for traffic are being turned off, affecting news organizations big and small, new and old,” she wrote. “The whole premise of internet publishing is starting to crumble, forcing publishers to reevaluate what kind of stories they produce and what kind of readers they want.”
Ultimately, Klein says, publishing brands need to think smaller. And not only that, they need to build much stronger direct bonds with readers and users.
The good news is that’s something that’s definitely do-able. Media companies have spent decades engaging audiences, and even startups that don’t have that legacy still have skillsets and options. Get better at mapping what engages audiences. Build databases that allow sophisticated analysis of users, creating personas that in turn allow the conversion of unknown visitors into known ones. Pivot to subscription-based products.
Possibly most promising is the emerging practice known as Generative Engine Optimization. You’ll forgive me if I explain what GEO is using an AI-generated blurb from Google.
“Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is a strategy for making your brand’s content visible and trusted within AI-powered generative search engines like Google AI Overviews and tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini. Unlike traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which focuses on keywords and links for search engine results pages, GEO emphasizes structured data, factual accuracy, and contextual relevance to ensure AI systems can understand, extract, and cite your brand’s information when generating comprehensive answers to user queries.”
(For 2026, SIIA Media’s Jesse H. Neal Awards are adding a category that recognizes GEO skill.)
But I have a lot of faith in media operators. They’re resilient and adaptable, and they’ll figure out how to respond to “Google Zero.”