As AI reshapes how people search and shop—with zero-click journeys becoming the norm—publishers must rethink monetization, shifting from chasing traffic to embedding relevance directly into AI-powered experiences.
Generative AI is quickly becoming the way people search, discover and shop. More platforms now offer end-to-end customer journeys that start with a question and end with a purchase, no clicks required.
Whether it’s Perplexity comparing prices, Deep Research recommending kitchen ranges or Google’s AI Overviews pairing product carousels with summaries, the message is clear: Users no longer need to leave the search box to make a decision.
“The deal used to be: I create great content, Google surfaces it, and I earn revenue from the clicks,” said Scott Sidler, publisher of Austin Historical, a site that specializes in old home restoration. “But now AI engines scrape the content, summarize it and give users the answer without ever sending them to my site. My motivation to create new content is way down, because what’s the point if no one sees it? Something has to change.”
Sidler says that his site’s ad revenue has plummeted from $7,000-$10,000 a month to just $1,500.
Zero-Clicks Are Here to Stay
Publishers, especially niche ones like Austin Historical, are now staring down a hard truth: They can’t fight the shift to AI. The question isn’t whether to resist; it’s how to adapt. And, more to the point, how to turn the shift to their advantage.
Visibility is just the beginning; revenue is the real challenge. As AI platforms increasingly manage the customer journey, publishers need more than just citations; they need business models that can thrive in an ecosystem where clicks are no longer the primary currency.
With referral traffic slipping and traditional platforms in flux, publishers aren’t standing still; they’re getting creative. Newsweek, for example, has made Reddit a central part of its audience amplification strategy, training its social team to identify the right community for every story. The goal isn’t just to drive clicks but to spark authentic conversations, nurture loyalty and build a direct audience that comes through the front door not from an algorithm.
It’s a smart move. In the post-social, post-cookie era, building a first-party audience is essential. But as Newsweek told AdMonsters, there won’t be a single solution that replaces the traffic and revenue once driven by search and social. And cultivating loyal readers, while vital, is a slow game.
To sustain operations in the near term, publishers also need to rethink how monetization works in an AI-dominated landscape. But they can’t do it alone; they need ad tech companies to innovate a path forward quickly.
“LLMs and agentic AI will continue to disrupt how consumers access information, and that will have a dramatic impact on not only the publishing landscape but also the entire media buying ecosystem. Everything that exists today in ‘regular programmatic’ needs to be rebuilt, adapted or created entirely new for the new future of ‘ads in AI,’” said Scott Messer of Messer Media.
That may sound daunting, but it’s not unfamiliar territory. “We’ve been in this cycle before, like in video, native and social. First, we will see a rise of the widgets, then conformity, then standards and then finally platforms. Between the widget and platform phases, there will be clamor and calamity, conquerors and the conquered,” he continued.
Right now, we’re in the widget phase. “These widgets are the innovation zone for sure,” he said, “but often act like ‘full stack’ solutions that are not interoperable with other components.” The challenge is timing the leap from experimentation to scalable platforms. “Too early and the buyers may not be ready for you,” Messer said. “Too late and you’ve missed the land grab.”
That innovation is already beginning to take shape.
New GEO-Friendly Monetization Tactics Emerging
A small number of companies are experimenting with ad formats designed for a world where users no longer click through but still express intent. These aren’t traditional banners or interstitials; they’re context-aware, format-flexible ad units built to integrate seamlessly into AI-driven experiences.
Perplexity AI, for example, has begun testing sponsored follow-up questions, ads that appear beneath AI-generated responses and offer users a chance to explore a related topic, such as “How can I use LinkedIn to enhance my job search?” Rather than disrupting the flow of the answer, these ads extend the conversation, turning intent into an opportunity for discovery, brand interaction and, eventually, conversion.
And last week, AdZen announced a new monetization engine for AI companies, one that’s designed to address the growing disconnect between conversational discovery and advertiser engagement. Rather than trying to force legacy ad formats into generative environments, AdZen is rethinking monetization from the ground up. Their approach centers on “native keyword links,” a lightweight ad unit that integrates directly into AI outputs or publisher content. These appear as subtle, context-aware prompts (think “click to learn more”) that surface at the precise moment a user expresses interest in a product, category or brand.
“It’s very similar to how search ads work,” said Co-Founder Brett Crosby, “except we’re applying that logic to the next generation of discovery, conversational, generative, AI-driven.” Unlike display ads, which often disrupt the reading experience, AdZen’s links are designed to enhance it. “We wanted to avoid anything that felt interruptive,” he said. “It’s about helping the user complete a journey they’ve already started.”
Early results suggest users are embracing the new approach. According to Crosby, some publisher pages are seeing conversion rates of over 4%, well above typical display ad benchmarks.
To illustrate, he gave the example of a consumer researching cooking ranges. “Let’s say someone is researching kitchen ranges. If they mention Frigidaire in a Reddit thread or an AI-generated summary, our system can automatically underline that keyword and add a prompt like ‘Click to learn more.’ That link might take the user to a brand page, a product category or even a specific model, depending on what the advertiser is targeting.”
Those links don’t just appear; they’re part of a bidding ecosystem. “Brands have the opportunity to own that conversation,” added AdZen Co-Founder Spencer Bardsley. “They bid against each other, and the publisher shares in that additional revenue.” It’s a familiar buying model, adapted to a new landscape, where relevance, not real estate, defines value.
For now, these early experiments are setting the tone. Whether inside AI interfaces or embedded in publisher content, they reflect a larger shift: Monetization in the AI era will depend on relevance, not redirects. Publishers who embrace this shift are already seeing results.
“The user experience is cleaner, and I make more money from one contextual link than I ever did from pop-up ads,” said Sidler. “I’m not back to where I was, but AdZen is helping me rebuild a sustainable model with the content I’ve already created, and that’s a big deal.”