Search engines using artificial intelligence could disrupt the digital economy, warns a researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center.
“If AI search becomes our primary portal to the web, it threatens to disrupt an already precarious digital economy,” Benjamin Brooks wrote in a recent MIT Technology Review article.
“Today, online content production depends on a fragile set of incentives tied to virtual foot traffic: ads, subscriptions, donations, sales or brand exposure,” he explained. “By shielding the web behind an omniscient chatbot, AI search could deprive creators of the visits and ‘eyeballs’ they need to survive.”
Brooks urged the AI industry to solve the problem of content compensation before others do. “The AI industry should take advantage of this narrow window of opportunity to create a smarter content marketplace before governments turn to interventions that are ineffective, benefit only a privileged few, or hinder free circulation of ideas on the Web,” he wrote.
“We have to keep in mind that these new systems, these new business models, are taking off,” he added in an interview with TechNewsWorld, “but however we respond to these challenges , it is important that we do this in a thoughtful, measured and targeted manner. This is why the industry should take the lead in this area.
“The government is now more confident than ever in regulating content and negotiations,” he said. “The AI research industry should be aware of this. With this added pressure over the coming years, the industry should move forward and develop a smarter solution before the government turns to more brutal solutions.
Impact of AI research unclear
So far, the impact of AI search on content creators’ wallets is still unclear. “It’s not clear yet, but there is a strong case that traffic to many publishers will be reduced,” said Greg Sterling, co-founder of Near the mediaa news, commentary and analysis website.
“The evidence is mixed,” he told TechNewsWorld. “During Google’s ‘SGE’ period, it was evident that organic links were being pushed to the bottom of the page and therefore (were) less visible.” Introduced in December 2023, Google’s Search Generative Experience provides insight into search topics using AI.
“However,” he continued, “there has been little research into actual click behavior. Google says links in AI results get more engagement. We need to do more research on this question.
Chris Ferris, senior vice president of digital strategy at Pierpont Communicationsa Houston public relations agency, added that AI search will exacerbate the problem that already exists with traditional search. “Most web pages don’t get any traffic from organic search,” he told TechNewsWorld.
He cited a study published by Search Engine Land predicting that organic traffic would decrease between 18% and 64% due to AI search.
Mark N. Vena, president and principal analyst at Smart Technology Research In Las Vegas, there is growing evidence that AI-powered search, such as AI generative summaries in search engines, has caused a decline in click-through rates on content providers’ websites , with users consuming more and more information directly from AI responses.
“Niche media and content creators have reported a reduction in traffic from traditional search sources when AI systems generate complete answers,” he told TechNewsWorld. “While detailed impact studies are underway, this trend indicates potential risks to publishers’ advertising revenues and visibility.”
“Undoubtedly, AI-based search tools risk reducing traffic to content providers’ sites, which could harm advertising revenue and subscription models,” he added.
“If users don’t click on original sources, content creators may struggle to monetize their work, threatening the sustainability of quality journalism and niche content. Balancing AI-driven convenience with proper attribution and redirection to content providers will be key to preserving a healthy digital content ecosystem.
Exaggerated eyeball apocalypse
Dev Nag, CEO and Founder of QueryPala San Francisco-based enterprise chatbot, argued that the narrative that AI search will destroy content creation by stealing eyeballs fundamentally misunderstands how content ecosystems have evolved.
“Think about how we moved from paid newspapers and centralized TV and movie studios to ad-supported online content,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Every change brought doomsday predictions, but we ended up with a lot more content – and from more content creators – than ever before.
“AI is poised to dramatically expand the reach of content through better discovery, translation and personalization. Rather than destroying the content economy, AI search has the potential to create a more efficient marketplace where quality content finds its target audience more effectively.
He argued that the evidence so far does not support the “eyeball apocalypse” narrative.
“As AI search changes the way people discover content, we see content creators adapt by producing more targeted, high-quality material that AI systems can better understand and distribute” , he declared. “True transformation is not about losing sight. It’s about moving from a mass advertising model to more sophisticated monetization approaches.
Nag predicts the emergence of two main models: “content licensing”, in which creators are paid to allow AI systems to learn and reference their work, even if it is openly available otherwise, as recent Google-Reddit agreement, and “value sharing”. ”, where AI platforms distribute revenue based on how often they reference and summarize a creator’s content.
“It is currently possible with RAG-based systems which are capable of providing explicit benchmarks – like Perplexity – and could be adapted to directly trained systems through sophisticated attribution tracking,” he explained.
“Search engines could do like TikTok and YouTube and share revenue to grow the creators who power their services,” added Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst of the Enderle Groupa consulting services company located in Bend, Oregon.
“However, as AI advances,” he told TechNewsWorld, “it may need less and less human creators, which will be problematic for this future outcome.”
Ross Rubin, the principal analyst of Crosshair searcha consumer technology consulting firm based in New York, pointed out that AI research is the culmination of something observed over decades.
“Back in the day, way before AI, there was Ask Jeeves,” he told TechNewsWorld. “The idea wasn’t executed very well, but the idea was that rather than getting a whole bunch of links, you get one response. In many cases, this is what the person searching wants. It’s a better experience to receive information up front and not have to piece it together or track it down from multiple information sources.
Disadvantages of large content offers
In his article, Brooks criticized AI companies for making deals with large media companies to avoid litigation or government intervention. “This policy of selective appeasement is untenable,” he wrote. “It neglects the vast majority of online creators, who cannot easily opt out of AI search and who lack the bargaining power of a traditional publisher.”
“This eliminates the urgency of reform by appeasing the most vocal critics,” he continued. “This legitimizes a few AI companies through confidential and complex commercial agreements, making it difficult for new entrants to obtain equal terms or compensation and potentially reinforcing a new wave of research monopolies.”
“In the long term, this could create perverse incentives for AI companies to favor low-cost, low-quality sources over high-quality but more expensive information or content, thereby fostering a culture of consumerism. non-critical information,” he added.
At this point in AI Research’s development, Sterling said it’s still too early to tell how the game will play out. “We have many assumptions and fears, but we need to test them and produce real data so that we are not acting on pure conjecture,” he observed.
