The "Open Internet" Isn't Dying, It's Changing Shape: Publishers Are Now Investing in Brand

The claim that "the open internet is dying," heard more and more often in recent years, only captures part of the truth. Digiday journalists, after speaking with executives at four major publishers, concluded that the open web isn't dying — it's changing shape. As reaching human audiences gets harder, AI systems are ingesting content more aggressively than ever, and the two audiences are increasingly diverging. "If you want growth, simply being an open-web business isn't enough anymore. The open internet isn't dead, but it's getting smaller," says John Roberts, head of innovation at People Inc.

At the same time, publishers are wrestling with how to monetize the bot traffic hitting their sites — a category that hasn't yet come close to offsetting losses in ad revenue. Forbes innovation chief Nina Gould says it remains an open question "how to fund the creation of quality, trustworthy content at a time when traditional models are breaking down fast and new ones haven't caught up."

Publishing executives say brand matters even more in the AI era. As lists of search results are increasingly replaced by AI-generated answers, publishers with strong editorial reputations have an edge — language models lean on recognized, trustworthy sources when generating those answers. Paul Bannister, chief strategy officer at Raptive, which manages a network of more than 6,000 independent publishers, says brand and content quality are now what determines which sites hold up against traffic and revenue losses and which don't. "A website still has value — because it's the one thing you actually own. An algorithm can knock you down tomorrow, and you effectively disappear the moment it does," he says.

The numbers bear this out. According to People Inc's financial report, the share of session-based revenue in total digital revenue fell from 61% in Q2 2025 to 57% in Q2 2026. Traffic to the company's flagship brands dropped 22% year over year, including a 40% drop in traffic from Google search. Even so, the company is making more money: non-session-based revenue — from social and native ad campaigns, events, sponsorships, email, and licensing — grew 16% over the year, raising its share of total digital revenue from 39% to 43%.

This trend is also accelerating consolidation in ad sales: Raptive recently launched its Apex platform to manage digital ad sales for major media companies, while Taboola now runs all of NBC News's programmatic display advertising as its sole intermediary. Jamie Samuel, VP of commercial products at Future, says the "zero-click" trend in search began well before language models and AI is simply accelerating it — which is why brands can no longer rely on search alone.

While licensing content to AI companies looks like a promising revenue avenue, that market hasn't matured yet. Analysis by ad agency Brainlabs found that Google's AI Overviews cut organic traffic by an average of 10.5% across 54 client sites, while visits from AI platforms rose 163% and "key events" such as purchases and sign-ups rose 335%. In other words, less traffic often means a higher-quality, more purchase-ready audience — and that's the takeaway that matters most for publishers and marketers alike.