Hey {{First name|there}}! It’s Aaron.

While listening to a recent podcast, I heard something that didn't sit right with me.

Google spent two decades building a business around clicks.

Now it seems to be building a future where clicks matter less.

Here's what you need to know this week.

Or at least, that's the direction Google seems to be heading.

While listening to a recent episode of Equity, I heard something that made me pause.

The guest was Matt Thompson from AI search startup Scrunch, and the conversation centered around Google's latest AI search push. Most of the discussion was what you'd expect: AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and the future of search.

But one idea kept nagging at me long after the episode ended.

Google spent the last twenty years teaching creators to chase clicks.

Now it seems to be building a future where clicks matter less.

That's a strange position for a company whose business was built on sending people to websites.

At Google I/O, the company doubled down on AI-powered search experiences. Instead of presenting users with a list of links, the goal is increasingly to provide answers directly.

That sounds convenient for users.

But it raises an interesting question for creators.

If an AI assistant summarizes five articles, three Reddit discussions, two YouTube videos, and a product page into a single response, who actually gets the attention?

The reader gets an answer.

The creator may never get a visit.

During the conversation, Thompson mentioned that some websites are already seeing growing volumes of AI bot traffic as AI systems increasingly crawl content on behalf of users.

Whether that becomes the norm or not, it points to something bigger.

For the first time in internet history, your content may be read by an AI before it's read by a human.

The weird part is that none of this sounds particularly revolutionary on paper.

After all, Google has been trying to answer questions directly for years.

But AI changes the relationship.

The goal is no longer helping users find the answer.

The goal is increasingly becoming the answer.

That's the part I couldn't stop thinking about.

Google's entire business empire was built on search. Search drives traffic. Traffic drives advertising. Advertising drives revenue.

So why would Google invest heavily in products that potentially reduce the number of clicks flowing across the web?

Because it has a bigger problem.

ChatGPT changed what people expect from search.

Perplexity showed that many users prefer conversations over lists of links.

Microsoft pushed AI directly into Bing.

For the first time in a long time, Google wasn't defining the future of search.

It was reacting to it.

In other words, Google isn't reducing the importance of clicks because it wants to.

It's doing it because somebody else might get there first.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Assistant Engine Optimization (AEO).

The idea was simple.

For years, creators optimized for search engines.

Increasingly, they'll need to optimize for AI assistants.

Listening to the podcast made me realize we're probably further along this transition than many of us think.

The old discovery funnel looked something like this:

Create → Rank → Click

The new one increasingly looks like this:

Create → Get Referenced → Get Trusted → Maybe Get Clicked

Notice what's missing.

The click is no longer the guaranteed reward for creating something valuable.

You're no longer competing for a position on page one.

You're competing to be included in the answer.

I don't think this means writing for AI.

In fact, I think the opposite is true.

When AI can generate endless amounts of generic content, original perspectives become more valuable. Personal experience becomes more valuable. Unique observations become more valuable.

The internet already has enough recycled summaries.

What it doesn't have enough of are people with something worth saying.

Because if AI increasingly becomes the middleman between creators and audiences, then the question changes.

It's no longer: How do I get found?
It's:

Google spent twenty years teaching creators to fight for clicks.

Now it's teaching us that clicks may no longer matter.

Humans still make the decisions.

But AI is increasingly deciding which information reaches them first.

The question is whether your content will still be visible once the middleman takes over.

See you in the next one,

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