What you describe is subtly different from what is in the article.

The article is about Google (and other traditional search engines) snatching away clicks from web site owners. What you describe is AI tools (for lack of a better word[1]) snatching away traffic from the ruling gatekeepers of the web.

I think the latter is a much bigger shift and might well be the end of Google.

By extension it will be the end of SEO as we know it. A lot of discussion currently (especially on HN) is about how to keep the bad crawlers out and in general hide from the oh so bad AI guys. That is not unlike the early days of search engines.

I predict we will soon see a phase where this switches by 180° and everyone will see a fight to be the first one to be accessed to get an opportunity to gaslight the agent into their view of the world. A new three letter acronym will be coined, like AIO or something and we will see a shift from textual content to assets the AI tools can only link to.

Maybe this has already happened to some degree.

[1] Where would I put the boundary? Is Kagi the former or the latter? I'd say if a tool does a non-predetermined number of independent activities (like searches) on its own and only stops if some criteria are fulfilled it is clearly in the latter category.

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ethbr1 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> everyone will see a fight to be the first one to be accessed to get an opportunity to gaslight the agent into their view of the world

In this model, only monetizable content will be generated though.

As much as we abhor what advertising has done to the web, at least it’s independent of content: pair quality content with ads, make money.

In the brave new AI search world, only content which itself is directly monetizable will be created. E.g. astroturf ads

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ricardobeat 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> pair quality content with ads, make money

Huh, the exact opposite happened. Create as much filler content as possible, optimized for SEO, generate thousands of variants to capture search traffic, cover as much of the screen as possible with ads, use tricks to increase page view count, and then make money.

Publishers of quality content have moved to subscriptions, which is a different kind of trouble.

> only content which itself is directly monetizable will be created

We have already been here for a while and it can hardly get any worse.

	▲	ethbr1 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> it can hardly get any worse I’ll take that bet.

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graemep 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> In the brave new AI search world, only content which itself is directly monetizable will be created

Or content that is not meant to make money (e.g. opinion pieces arguing for a cause), or is very specific to products that make money (e.g. documentation, manuals), or is funded by governments or non-profits for the public good.

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arizen 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You're spot on. That shift you're describing isn't a prediction anymore, it's already happening.

The term you're looking for is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), though your "AIO" is also used. It's the new frontier.

And you've nailed the 180° turn: the game is no longer about blocking crawlers but about a race to become their primary source. The goal is to be the one to "gaslight the agent" into adopting your view of the world. This is achieved not through old SEO tricks, but by creating highly structured, authoritative content that is easy for an LLM to cite.

Your point about shifting to "assets the AI tools can only link to" is the other key piece. As AI summarization becomes the norm, the value is in creating things that can't be summarized away: proprietary data, interactive tools, and unique video content. The goal is to become the necessary destination that the AI must point to.

The end of SEO as we know it is here. The fight for visibility has just moved up a layer of abstraction.

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chasd00 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> I predict we will soon see a phase where this switches by 180° and everyone will see a fight to be the first one to be accessed to get an opportunity to gaslight the agent into their view of the world. A new three letter acronym will be coined, like AIO or something and we will see a shift from textual content to assets the AI tools can only link to.

i can definitely see LLMs companies offering content creators a bump in training priority for a fee. It will be like ad-sales but you're paying for the LLM to consider your content at a higher priority than your competition.