I recently came across the WSJ article: “Google Was a Lifeline for Publishers. Now Some Are Thinking of Cutting It Off” and it made me think about a question that I have been asking myself for the past couple of years is: “How are LLMs going to feed their model if they kill the same websites that they use as citations?”

I remember when we first started talking about AI, and as an affiliate director, my first thought was to my publishers. What are they going to do if they can’t rely on Google for traffic? I set up a lot of calls specifically to ask that question: What are you doing about AI? What is your strategy?

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They all were very aware but none had a good answer for me. Now, a couple of years down the line some are boycotting Google and AI, but in general, based on other articles I read, the consensus seems to be that nothing has really been done yet. 

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With AI taking the clicks, and therefore monetization, from publishers will that mean the slow death of content writers? On the other hand, LLMs depend on fresh content to cite and answer prompts, so, if all content writers are dead, where will they get the content to answer the prompts people are feeding them?

The evolution of content writing 

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Journalism has been for decades, one of the fields most affected by the advent of the internet. Back up to the time before the internet, people used to buy newspapers and magazines to stay up to date with what was going on. Opinions came from respected (and well paid) editors, journalism was a respectable and lucrative career. 

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Then the internet swept that away as more and more people got used to consuming information in other (and free) ways on the internet. Everybody was certain that the internet would kill the journalists; but now, 40 years and a new world later, journalism is still on life support and content writers are now more prevalent, even if not as heavily compensated in most cases, than ever. People still want content to come from sources they trust; the connection with the content creator is now stronger than it ever has been.

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Content creators adjusted to the internet. SEO gave them a model that worked and marketers spent 20 years perfecting the click of that blue link. AI shows up - pulling from citations that will never see this audience - to answer users’ questions and the rules of engagement are changing again and they seem crueler than ever.

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The new catch 22 that AI brings

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The irony here is, LLMs can’t survive without content. Yes, social and personal blogs are a big part of what they cite. And, I believe people will always write despite not getting paid. But quality, well thought through content requires time and effort and experts not only will want to, but deserve to be compensated. If they lose their source of income, they will stop producing content and find another way to make a living. They have to. And LLMs rely on that content to ensure they provide quality answers. Why would users go to LLMs for answers, when the quality of the answers is always poor? 

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However, quality content will struggle to survive without viewers. Large publications rely on ad revenue to subsist and there is no ad revenue if there are no users viewing the ads. 

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Google solved that problem with those blue links. In their model, you had to select a publisher to read your answer, and, if you did it right, you won the Google lottery and you got a lot of users that viewed your ads. 

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LLMs’ solution will have to be different; either they will have to start paying publications (and some do, but a small amount) to license their content or publishers will have to start earning money from writing AEO optimized content for brands (which is also happening but to a smaller extent than it should) or find another solution. 

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As LLMs start understanding the value of high quality content, will they be willing to pay millions for it? As LLMs start monetizing themselves, they will have money to start sharing the goods, and competition to be the best will pressure them into striking the best deals to ensure the reliability of their answers.

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Maybe, at some point publishers will become desperate, and strong enough to pull the plug. It seems like many of them are getting close.

A New Form of Marketing is Emerging

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What I do know, is that CMOs and CFOs are slowly starting to understand and trust this channel more. More ways to track its effectiveness are starting to emerge and marketing dollars are slowly starting to flow that way, following the customer as it has always done. A new form of marketing is in its infancy with all the messiness and the unknowns of a newborn, but also with all the excitement and potential of one. I, for one, can’t wait to see how it evolves.

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