Artificial intelligence has broken the traditional internet model and is forcing media outlets to rethink how they survive on the web. The shift was exposed at SIPConnect 2026, where Lucky Gunasekara, founder of Miso Technologies Inc., argued that the traffic that sustained digital press no longer flows as it used to.
Artificial intelligence changed the logic of the internet
For 25 years, the formula was almost mechanical: the user searched, clicked, and the media outlet monetized that visit. With artificial intelligence, that journey has shortened to the point of disappearing in many cases, because the answer arrives without passing through the original website.
Gunasekara stated that the actual click-through rate is around just 1% when media outlets appear in AI systems. That data matches the trend described by several recent analyses on “zero-click” searches, where the user gets the answer in the same interface and does not enter the source site.
In this scenario, artificial intelligence not only reorganizes access to information: it also weakens the advertising model that sustained a large part of the digital press for years.
Artificial intelligence, fewer clicks and more economic pressure
The impact is already reflected in the business. Feed content points to year-on-year drops of up to 30% in traditional media traffic in the United States and the United Kingdom, with a risk of even greater declines towards 2030. Other recent coverage also reports declines in visits and an increase in queries that end without a click.
The explanation is simple: if artificial intelligence answers, the user no longer browses. And if they don’t browse, the media outlet loses impressions, advertising, registrations, and potential subscriptions.
The new problem: extracting content without returning value
Gunasekara described this practice as “information fracking”, a massive extraction of journalistic information without proportional compensation. He also spoke of “tech vampires” to refer to systems that collect data using phantom browsers, residential IP networks, and behavioral automation.
The core of the discussion is not just technical. Artificial intelligence is turning media outlets into raw material providers for machines that summarize, rewrite, and redistribute information without always sending traffic back.
Artificial intelligence: three routes for publishers
According to the presentation in Miami, publishers have three possible exits:
- Commercial agreements: licensing content on a large scale, even if the direct relationship with the reader is lost.
- Fortress: closing access behind stricter paywalls.
- Technological sovereignty: building proprietary infrastructure, controlling data, and developing tools based on artificial intelligence.
At the center of this dispute remains the same question: who controls the value of content on a web where artificial intelligence no longer just indexes, but also answers. For the media, the immediate challenge is to prevent traffic from disappearing completely while artificial intelligence redefines the business, distribution, and visibility of journalism.
