The old search-and-click routine is quietly unraveling, replaced by AI-driven search tools that are sleek, conversational, and increasingly addictive. What started as a novelty in late 2022 has exploded: ChatGPT now clocks an estimated 400 million weekly users by early 2025. For context, Business of Apps reported it hit 100 million in just two months. That’s not growth, it’s combustion.
This shift doesn’t just tweak how people search; it revolutionized the foundation of how digital media has been monetized for the past two decades. Publishers, advertisers, and ad tech platforms are now standing at the edge of a cliff with very elegant dashboards, and no parachute.
What’s at Stake for Publishers, Advertisers, and Ad Tech
Publishers are already feeling the ground move. Historically, search referrals were the golden highway: users searched, clicked, landed on a page, and voilà: an ad server lit up with impressions. Now, with AI answer boxes swallowing up user attention, organic click-through rates have nosedived by as much as 70%.
Advertisers aren’t spared either. Search ads have long been the backbone of digital marketing, reliable, measurable, intent-driven. But AI bots don’t serve ads (at least not yet). ChatGPT’s shopping and search functions, for example, deliberately exclude advertising. So no sidebars of sponsored links and ad placements that made up entire campaign strategies vanished too.
Ad tech players, such as DSPs, SSPs, and ad servers are staring down an existential threat. The systems were built for a world of links, clicks, and auctions. They speak keywords and cookies. But AI speaks context, conversation, and intent. An entirely different dialect.
To stay relevant, ad tech needs to evolve. That might mean embedding context-aware ads into voice assistants or AI chat. Or reengineering the ad server for publishers to interpret not just page context, but query context, emotional tone, even inferred urgency.
How the Traditional Search Model Is Shifting
Remember when search meant typing keywords, hitting enter, and wading through a list of blue links, flanked by neatly packaged ads? That model isn’t just evolving, it’s quietly being replaced while no one’s looking.
Enter the age of generative AI: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, digital oracles with better manners than most humans and arguably more answers. These systems now field everything from homework help to product comparisons, not just with links, but with complete responses.
OpenAI recently revealed that ChatGPT’s integrated search feature conducted over 1 billion web searches in a single week as of April 2025. But don’t count Google out just yet. Search Engine Land noted that Google still crushes it with roughly 14 billion daily searches, that’s about 373 times more than ChatGPT’s current pace. Yes, Google is still the Goliath.
But here’s the thing: it’s not about how many queries anymore. It’s about how users engage.
The traditional search engine gives you a buffet: pick your link, click through, maybe see some ads. AI search gives you a meal, plated and ready. No links, no noise, no reason to leave the chat window. And that has big consequences.
ChatGPT’s search and shopping features are proudly ad-free by design. No banners, no sponsored results, just clean, curated responses. Meanwhile, Google’s own AI “Overviews” (those handy AI-generated summaries at the top of results) are doing their own damage. So what happens when the answer shows up before the link? Users stop clicking, pages stop loading, ads stop serving, and publishers stop earning.
Implications for Publishers and Key Industry Players
Revenue Impact for Publishers
Picture this: you’ve got a homepage optimized within an inch of its life, ad server humming, every slot filled with carefully calibrated placements, and traffic drops off a cliff. It happens because an AI assistant summarized your article before anyone even saw it. In the worst-case scenario, your ad server is just serving air. And if your monetization strategy still leans heavily on predictable search-referral traffic, you’re playing roulette with your income stream.
Advertising Strategy Upheaval
The reliable ecosystem of keywords and intent signals is fracturing. If users are asking ChatGPT instead of Googling, your search ad isn’t even in the room.
At this point it’s time to explore affiliate links. Test native formats. Whisper sweet nothings to voice assistants and video platforms. Some ad budgets will shift into content partnerships. Others will bet on new formats we haven’t even invented yet, such as ads that appear inside conversations or blur into product recommendations powered by AI.
The Tech Stack Needs a Hard Refresh
Let’s talk about infrastructure. Traditional ad tech was built for keywords, not context. For cookies, not conversation. The rise of AI search makes this painfully obvious.
If your ad server for publishers still thinks in terms of static placements and predictable traffic, it’s time to rethink your stack. Modern ad servers must recognize semantic nuances, adjust in real time, and integrate seamlessly with AI-native environments. That means machine learning is baked into the delivery logic. Contextual cues, not just targeting tags. Flexibility, not rigidity.
DSPs and networks are already starting to upgrade for this. If you’re not, your monetization potential may quietly plateau and then fall.
Data & Measurement: The New Unknowns
With AI-generated answer summaries and zero-click behaviors on the rise, traditional SEO and referral metrics are losing some of their shine. Now keyword rankings are a bit less relevant and clickthrough rates are misleading. Publishers will need new ways to understand how (or if) they’re being cited by AI tools and what that visibility is worth.
That might mean leaning into structured data and or integrating with AI APIs (if they ever open up). Or building your tracking layer to see how often you show up in AI outputs. The point is that the old signals are fading. If you’re still watching your analytics as if it were 2018, you’re watching a ghost.
Let’s be clear: this shift isn’t optional. Everyone in the chain, from writers to ad ops to CTOs, needs to move. Legacy platforms may fold. AI-native challengers will rise. Are publishers still clinging to search traffic as their primary monetization engine? They’re heading toward thinner margins and emptier ad slots.
How to Adapt to the Shift: Actionable Strategies
Here’s where to begin:
1. Diversify or Die (Traffic Edition)
Now’s the time to build direct channels. Newsletters. Podcasts. Apps. Discord communities, even. Whatever gives you traffic you actually own. Don’t just optimize for discovery, create ecosystems that don’t fall apart every time a chatbot answers a query before your headline gets a chance.
2. Think Like a Machine (But Write Like a Human)
AI doesn’t read like us. It skims, scrapes, and prioritizes structured, authoritative, semantically-rich content. So give it what it wants, but without losing your voice.
Clear headings. Schema markup. FAQ sections. Think “How would this sound in a chatbot answer?” Craft content that could be the response. This isn’t old-school SEO. This is conversational search optimization, writing for humans and the machines who now mediate them.
3. Use AI to Fight AI
This is not the time to romanticize the artisanal content grind. Use AI tools strategically. Let them surface winning topics, automate repetitive analysis, tweak ad bids while you sleep.
Some ad platforms already embed machine learning to optimize placements in real time. If your tools aren’t working smarter, you’re working harder for less. Sync your strategy with platforms that can parse intent beyond keywords, because let’s face it, keywords alone won’t cut it anymore.
4. Test Weird Formats
Let go of the banner ad monoculture. Explore sponsored stories, affiliate embeds, e-comm partnerships. Try shoppable widgets, recommendation rails, maybe even branded AI tools (yes, really).
Take a cue from ChatGPT’s new shopping feature, affiliate-style product links minus the commissions). It’s not monetized yet, but it signals where the current is flowing.
5. Quality Still Wins (Especially Now)
Here’s the irony: in an AI-saturated landscape, what stands out most is human rigor. Depth. Trust. Originality. AI loves to cite sources, but it favors the ones that feel solid.
Publishers who invest in investigative pieces, clean data, and fact-checked analysis will get more than just respect, they’ll get cited. And cited means seen. And seen means still in the game.
6. Upgrade Your Stack (Like, Yesterday)
Ad servers need to grow up. Fast.
If yours can’t support multi-channel campaigns, real-time optimization, or context-based bidding, then swap it. Look for a modern ad server for publishers that speaks AI fluently: semantic targeting, intent recognition, and adaptability across unpredictable traffic flows.
7. Run Experiments Like It’s a Lab
A/B test content formats. Try different traffic segments. Shift your ad placements. Watch what AI platforms surface. Use what works. Ditch what doesn’t. This kind of agility isn’t optional, it’s how you stay relevant while the rules are being rewritten mid-game.
Key Takeaways
AI-powered search isn’t just a trend, it’s a tectonic shift. The kind that cracks open business models and forces entire industries to relearn their playbook mid-season. Here’s where we land:
Rapid AI growth is real
From zero to 400 million weekly users by early 2025, ChatGPT’s rise is nothing short of wild. Sure, Google still dominates with 14 billion daily searches but momentum matters. And momentum is shifting.
Publishers can’t afford to wait
Sticking to the old model? Risky. Waiting for Google to figure it out? Riskier. Publishers need to diversify traffic, rethink formats, and deploy AI-driven ad servers for publishers that don’t panic when the traffic map redraws itself overnight.
Strategy needs to get uncomfortable
This is uncharted territory. That’s a feature, not a bug. The publishers who thrive will be those who move first, test fast, and fuse high-quality content with data-driven, AI-aware tactics. Think less of legacy media and more of a tactical lab.
AI search is already reshaping how users discover content and how brands reach them. That shift brings friction, yes, but also immense creative opportunity. The ad model isn’t dead. It’s just moving.
Search changed, and the ad server should too. See how Epom adapts.
