Right now, AI generates its content based on content originally created by humans. But at the current pace of AI content production, AI will soon generate new content based on previously AI-generated content. The share of human-created content in the global pool will become negligibly small in the near future. What does that lead to?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!
Think About It: Google Creates Content and Controls Its Own Search Results Based on That Same Content
Google could essentially close the loop - both creating the content and determining what to show in search results based on what it created. We'd be irrelevant to the process. I think Google's architects understand this and are trying to preserve some degree of human influence on content creation and on what gets ranked. Digital watermarks - which everyone knows about - plus some signals of human-authored content are probably being factored into the algorithms. But this is highly debatable and nobody really knows how it's supposed to work in practice.
When I search for something complex, I can tell the answer was assembled from multiple sources - still human-created ones - and the answer is actually pretty good. But in a year or two, when there are millions of AI-generated variations and plenty of junk, what guarantees the answer won't be drawn from garbage? And Google itself killed the incentive to produce that source content - humans stopped getting the traffic.
Let's Think This Through: How Will AI Change Content Quality? What Happens to Search Results?
Two future problems I want to discuss:
- What quality of search answers will we get in the future, and what will they be based on?
- Why should small and medium businesses create informational content if the chances of getting search traffic are so low?
How Will Search Engines Determine Content Quality If AI Generates Everything?
Today we know the key criteria - behavioral signals, domain authority, author credibility.
Behavioral signals - the fact that many users view certain content doesn't mean it's high quality. Today, the best behavioral signals for commercial queries belong to the biggest platforms - marketplaces and classified sites. And the content quality there is often terrible: non-unique, auto-generated product descriptions.
Domain authority - also doesn't guarantee that new content on a recently created page is quality content.
Author credibility - as we now understand, the author will be AI itself. Maybe Google will just make itself the author ).
So how does anyone determine which content is more useful and higher quality for building a search answer?
The SEO Traffic Problem for Small and Medium Businesses. Where Does This All Lead?
The rich get richer? All the traffic concentrates in the major platforms, with only scraps left for regular websites. Why should small and medium businesses create informational pages if they can't get indexed fast enough before Zero-click search absorbs that traffic?
For commercial pages - product and service pages - there's still some logic to creating content for organic search. But for informational pages, it barely makes sense anymore. Informational traffic is possible but negligibly small. Commercial traffic is declining too.
We'll End Up With Low-Quality Small and Medium Business Websites
Why would they invest in anything beyond product photos and copy-pasted descriptions if traffic won't come regardless? Build something exceptional for users - still no traffic.
My prediction: a rapid deterioration in overall content quality. Websites will serve only a commercial function - to facilitate transactions. That's it. What do you think the outcome will be?
The Bottom Line on Google's Changes for Small and Medium Business
Ultimately, businesses will shift to Google's paid tools and abandon attempts to earn organic SEO traffic from search. It's getting more expensive and more complex, and it simply won't pay off. Only large players can hire the right specialists and justify the investment. The number and quality of websites should logically decrease, not grow. There may be growth in platforms that generate sites without custom domains or quality hosting - why invest in that if paid advertising doesn't require it? Google will become a marketplace and a bundle of advertising tools.
What AI Itself Says About the Future of Websites
I ran this query in Google and will break down the response.
Google AI response: People won't stop building websites because their goal isn't just to collect search traffic - it's to establish trust, own their content, and provide security for their business.
My take: Partly agree. Security matters for running operations - but that mostly applies to large players. Trust and content ownership also primarily matters for established brands. Small businesses will be satisfied with free or subscription-based solutions like Wix, Webflow, or Google Sites, and content quality simply won't be a priority.
Google AI response: As neural networks (AI agents) develop, the internet is transforming - but websites remain relevant for several critical reasons: True ownership and independence: Your social media accounts or marketplace listings can be shut down at any moment. A website is your independent digital property.
My take: No. A domain and hosting are rented services, just like everything else. Storing content locally - yes, that guarantees true ownership. But fear of losing content isn't really the reason people build websites.
Google AI response: Direct audience connection: Brands and experts build websites to develop deep trust relationships (through blogs, email newsletters) that a faceless AI answer can't replace. Specialized functionality: Websites are needed for interactive services, online stores, booking systems, corporate portals, and much more.
My take: Yes, where business functionality is required, a website plays a critical role. But that doesn't mean the content quality needs to be high. Text and photos can be copied - why invest in unique content creation? Good enough for the customer to understand the offer and complete the transaction is sufficient.
Google AI response: Demonstrating expertise (E-E-A-T): In an era of massive AI content, search algorithms value real human experience and verified authors.
My take: Consider this: I write an excellent expert article, invest serious resources - and get minimal traffic because users get all their answers without clicking through. So why create the content? What's the point of my expertise if I'm essentially just feeding AI my work and getting nothing in return?
This only matters for commercial content aimed at selling products or services. Commercial pages still see decent click-through because Google hasn't yet built viable solutions for purchasing without visiting the merchant's site.
The conclusion: only commercial content still has development potential - it makes sense to keep investing in quality there.
What happens to informational content development? Will it stop evolving, leaving only Wikipedia-style services for this type of knowledge, while everything else stagnates?
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens to search quality when AI trains on AI-generated content?
Search quality risks deteriorating. When the share of human-authored content in training data becomes negligibly small, AI answers will be based on AI interpretations of AI interpretations - each generation moves further from the original source. Google is likely working on signals to identify human-authored content, but how effective that will be remains uncertain.
Why create informational content in the Zero-click search era?
The case has become very weak. Zero-click results capture informational queries on the search page itself - users don't need to click through. Investing in informational articles without a realistic traffic return doesn't make sense. The remaining opportunity is commercial content - service and product pages where a visit is still needed to complete a purchase.
How will search engines evaluate content quality in an AI-dominated world?
None of the current signals solve this cleanly. Behavioral data can be gamed - top-performing content isn't necessarily high quality. Domain authority says nothing about new page quality. E-E-A-T loses meaning when the author is an AI. Entirely new quality signals will be needed, and there's no clear solution yet.
What does the AI search shift mean for small and medium businesses globally?
Likely a pivot to paid advertising tools and a retreat from organic SEO investment for informational content. Websites survive as commercial transaction infrastructure, but quality investment drops to the minimum viable level. Only large players with scale can justify sustained SEO spending.
Will small businesses still need websites in the future?
For selling products and services - yes, functionality is still needed. For earning informational SEO traffic - the case is essentially gone. Small businesses will increasingly migrate to low-cost platforms like Wix or Google Sites, dropping the overhead of custom hosting and domain investment.