AI is killing the web economy and marketers are going to suffer
In Marketing We Trust CEO Paul Hewett takes a frank and detailed look at what AI bots are doing to web traffic. He concludes that unless the industry unites, AI will break the web economy.
“People create content for two reasons: to make money or to get famous. If we don’t fix the economics, the internet dies.”
When I stumbled upon Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince making this stark statement on LinkedIn this week, it immediately stopped me scrolling. It wasn’t just dramatic; it succinctly captured a fundamental truth that every marketer and content creator instinctively knows but rarely states so bluntly.
Prince elaborated further, emphasising the seriousness of the situation: “If we don’t fix this, the internet is going to die. I’m not going to sugar coat it. If people do not have incentives to create content, they are not going to create content. It has to be that you make money or you get famous. Those are the two reasons people create content. That’s it. We have to get that back or the internet dies.”
I’ve spent my career in the trenches of digital marketing, helping global brands build visibility, drive traffic, and convert visitors into revenue. At its core, marketing is fundamentally an economic discipline. We create, measure, optimise, and repeat, all to generate revenue or elevate brand recognition. However, very recent and predictable shifts driven by AI and evolving search behaviours threaten the very foundations of this economic model.
