artificial intelligence, broke, and traditional model are already three inseparable concepts when analyzing the new economy of the open web. What for more than two decades was a stable system of traffic, clicks, and advertising is being displaced by conversational assistants and machine-generated answers, in a turn that many experts describe as the dawn of a new era for the internet.
The starting point of this debate was heard in Miami, at the hemispheric conference SIPConnect 2026, where the founder of Miso Technologies Inc., Lucky Gunasekera, warned that the historic pact that sustained the web for twenty-five years “is dead.” That pact was clear: media outlets and creators published free content, search engines sent visits, and advertising paid the bill. Today, artificial intelligence broke the traditional internet model by answering queries directly without requiring the user to visit the source pages.
Data from traffic analysis firms reveal drops close to 15% in visits to traditional websites over the past year, coinciding with the massive rollout of chatbots and automatic summaries in search engines. In the case of searches with advanced AI features, it is estimated that more than 60% of queries end in “zero click”: the user reads the summary and does not enter any site.
From gateway to final destination of information
During the era of the open web, search engines acted as mere intermediaries. The user asked the question, received a list of results, and decided which media outlet or portal to visit. With the expansion of tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and other conversational assistants, the situation changed: artificial intelligence broke the traditional internet model by turning the search engine and the chatbot into the final destination of information.
AI-generated summaries feed on multiple sources, but rarely direct enough traffic back to them. In practice, media content transforms into invisible inputs within large language models. Attention, which was previously distributed among different websites, becomes concentrated in a few technology platforms.
Direct impact on media and content creators
Digital media outlets in the United States, Europe, and Latin America have reported significant drops in audience since search engines began prioritizing AI responses over traditional links. For information projects like orgullodominicano.org, this dynamic implies fewer visits, shorter reading times, and increasing pressure on advertising and subscription revenue.
- Less traffic implies fewer ad impressions.
- AI models are trained on journalistic content, but do not guarantee an economic return to the authors.
- The incentive to produce investigative reports and deep analysis is weakened.
Some experts are already talking about a sustainability crisis in digital journalism: artificial intelligence broke the traditional internet model that allowed entire newsrooms to be funded with the attention obtained via search engines.
Homogenization and risk to informational diversity
Recent research warns of another collateral effect: the intensive use of AI in creating pages and texts is generating a more homogeneous web, with less diversity of styles and viewpoints. AI-generated or assisted sites show much greater semantic similarity than traditionally written content, which reduces the variety of ideas present on the network.
This trend is particularly concerning in the field of journalism and fact-checking. If most queries are resolved with automatic summaries, the reader accesses a synthesized version of reality, without context, without nuances, and without source contrasting. Artificial intelligence broke the traditional internet model based on exploring links and comparing information.
What’s next for the open web and Dominican media?
In the Dominican Republic, media outlets that depend on organic traffic are starting to feel the same effects already observed in other markets: lower reach, greater dependence on platforms, and the need to diversify revenue. The question of how artificial intelligence broke the traditional internet model is not only technological, but also economic and democratic.
Debates in forums like SIPConnect 2026 point to potential answers: data licensing agreements with big tech companies, new ways of measuring informational value, and editorial strategies adapted to a scenario where AI chats are the new gateway. In this context, understanding that artificial intelligence broke the traditional internet model is the first step for media outlets and creators to build survival models in the era of automation.
