I think providers of so-called "answer engines" will read the writing on the wall and find new ways to support content creators in order to keep their databases fresh, relevant, and centered on human perspectives. I also think that to see how the economics will play out, you only need to look at similarly centralized systems like Apple's App Store and Google's AdSense.

Because the providers will act as a single tunnel that all content passes through before reaching the end user, the tolls they collect will be large. So, I don't doubt that there will still be opportunities for content creators to earn money as answer engines siphon off more and more of the web's traffic, but expect those opportunities to be broadly low-paying, falling decidedly in the "side hustle" category.

AI providers will want to incentivize content creation. There will still be a glut of ready providers, and little reason for providers to make anything but small, nominal payments.