Monica Caraway
We're all watching our website traffic drop. The prominence of users searching for information by asking their favorite virtual or AI assistant is leading to less and less mouse clicking. And that means your blog, CTAs, and homepage no longer shape how searchers find and learn about your brand.
This marketing reality got a flood of attention when Speaker/Author Roger Dooley published a LinkedIn post in response to a recent WSJ article, The Companies Betting They Can Profit From Google Search's Demise. The article profiled startups like Athena and Profound, which help brands optimize for AI instead of traditional SEO. Their focus is to get customers' content into LLM-generated answers.
Roger’s LinkedIn post about the article struck a nerve. More than 1,300 likes and nearly 500 comments later, it was clear marketers weren’t just curious, they were rattled.
Some asked, “How will AI know what to say about my brand?” Others wondered if this meant the end of websites altogether. And many simply said what everyone’s thinking:
“What are we supposed to do about this?”
The Zero-Click Trend, Explained
The WSJ article covered something seismic: there are startups being built around the concept that AI, not your homepage, is now the first point of contact. These companies aren’t trying to get you to rank #1 on Google. They’re helping your content show up when someone asks ChatGPT, “What’s the best project management tool for agencies?”
This isn’t just theory. One startup in the article claims to have helped a company boost sign-ups by 9% from AI traffic alone; no search ads or top-ranking blog involved.
You might hear terms like "AI optimization," "GEO" (generative engine optimization), or "AEO" (answer engine optimization). Whatever you call it, the message is clear:
"If you’re not thinking about how your content performs in AI answers, you’re already behind."
This isn’t the end of SEO, but it’s a sharp left turn. AI search favors clean structure, credible citations, and content that’s easy to summarize and quote. We’ve spent decades optimizing for humans with cursors. Now, we’re writing for language models with autocomplete logic.
Where Will the Data Come From?
A big question that came up again and again in Roger's LinkedIn thread was:
“If no one visits websites anymore, how will AI know what to say about us?”
These models don’t magically know your differentiators, pricing, or use cases. They learn from what’s already online from your site, your blog, your metadata.
But if website traffic dries up, does the data stream stop too?
A lot of marketers on the LinkedIn thread voiced concern that AI tools will be the new gatekeepers of brand visibility, especially if they stop reading the open web and rely on licensed or third-party summaries.
The irony? To influence what AI says about you, you may need to double down on public-facing content, even if fewer people read it.
Startups like Athena are betting on this. They help companies create AI-friendly content: FAQs with clean formatting, updated product descriptions, and sourceable stats that models can easily cite.
The mindset shift? You’re writing not just for customers, but for AI as a reader, recommender, and referrer.
Get the ebook: Marketing to AI, Your New Audience
Trust Isn’t Dead (Yet)
Even as AI improves, there’s still a gap between getting information and making a decision. And trust fills that gap.
Some see the website changing from a discovery tool to a validation layer. AI gets someone 80% of the way there, but your site confirms you’re legit.
Others pointed out that if your name appears in an AI answer, the next step is often a quick search. If your brand doesn’t look credible, that lead disappears fast.
So even if fewer visitors land on your site, those who do will arrive with higher intent, and higher expectations.
The takeaway? Your website still matters. Not as the starting point, but as the moment of proof.
Your Website’s New Job Description
Not every marketer is convinced this is a reckoning. Some in the LinkedIn thread rolled their eyes, noting we’ve been through disruption cycles before: AMP pages, voice search, metaverse storefronts.
Still, there’s consensus on one thing: websites aren’t dead. But their job certainly has changed.
For years, websites were built to attract traffic. Headlines, keywords, calls to action. But now? Your site may not be the front door. It’s the source material, the repository LLMs scrape, summarize, and cite.
One marketer summed it up:
“Our website used to be the destination. Now it’s the syndication hub.”
That means structure matters: clear sections, consistent metadata, labeled product info, FAQ blocks that AI can easily use.
It also means brand consistency matters. If you say one thing on your homepage and another in your podcast transcript, AI may pull the wrong message. And that may be the only message your audience ever sees.
Less traffic = Higher stakes.
Because now, your site isn’t just for people, it’s training the machines.
Big Shift, Small Brand Energy
Among smaller brands, the tone was more urgent.
“If AI trusts Apple, how do the rest of us even show up?”
AI tools tend to favor prominent, well-cited sources. That puts smaller players at risk, not because they’re less trustworthy, but because they’re less visible.
The challenge for smaller brands isn’t just keeping up, it’s rethinking the visiblity from the ground up. That means treating AI like a new distribution channel and making your content easy for it to understand, summarize, and cite.
Marketers in Roger’s thread shared practical steps: structure content with clear headings and FAQs, keep product information consistent everywhere, publish on platforms AI pulls from, and track when AI answers drive visits or mentions.
We’ve pulled together more of these tactics—and the reasoning behind them—into Marketing to AI: Your New Audience . It’s a field guide to shaping your content for AI while keeping your brand voice intact.
We'd love for you to check out the guide to help you address the website shift.
