In 1999, the dotcoms were valued on traffic. IPO metrics revolved around eyeballs.
Then Google launched AdWords, an ad model predicated on clicks, & built a $273b business in 2024.
But that might all be about to change : Pew Research’s July 2025 study reveals users click just 8% of search results with AI summaries, versus 15% without - a 47% reduction. Only 1% click through from within AI summaries.
Cloudflare data shows AI platforms crawl content far more than they refer traffic back : Anthropic crawls 32,400 pages for every 1 referral, while traditional search engines scan content just a couple times per visitor sent.
The expense of serving content to the AI crawlers may not be huge if it’s mostly text.
The bigger point is AI systems disintermediate the user & publisher relationship. Users prefer aggregated AI answers over clicking through websites to find their answers.
It’s logical that most websites should expect less traffic. How will your website & your business handle it?
Sources: