Will ChatGPT Destroy Content Sites?

Open AI, the company behind ChatGPT, released a list of jobs that could be eaten by AI in the months and years to come. Copywriters are on the chopping block, but interestingly, search marketers have a high likelihood of survival.

What does this mean for the future of content sites over the next 5-10 years?

What is a content site?

“Content sites “are businesses built on written content designed to drive organic search traffic from Google to a website.

There are three common monetization models for content sites:

• Affiliate

• Display ads

• Courses

The rise of Open AI and AI derived language learning models (LLM) terrify online publishers and content site owners, both large and small. The fear is that Google’s search ecosystem will be disrupted and replaced by chatbots, or that the percentage of “zero click” Google searches will meaningfully accelerate so that fewer and fewer websites receive traffic.

There have been some very public examples of Bard plagiarizing large sections of content with no attribution.

Will AI tools replace search?

Based on what we are seeing from early versions of these tools, It seems likely that AI tools will siphon off valuable traffic from some publishers, but unlikely that AI language tools will replace search altogether anytime soon. The LLM tools developed by Google and Open AI scrape the internet at massive scale and rely on the totality of the current conversation to offer answers and prose. The technology is powerful, but it’s unclear to me how a “uni-voice" benefits users. Just as we expect multiple entrees on a restaurant menu, users want a variety of voices when asking a question or conducting in-depth research. Search offers variety, and while AI tools are convenient for loads of “top of the funnel” queries, they lack the perspective that a diverse range of voices offers.

Chatbot features will be added to search results, but not as a replacement, at least not anytime soon.

How fearful should publishers be of AI?

Nevertheless, the affiliate marketer fear vs. greed index is tilted decidedly toward the fear end of the spectrum.

Word on the street is that Bard and ChatGPT are coming to destroy publishers and remake search engines.

It’s possible.

But Google profits tremendously from search. Bing has integrated Chat GPT into search.

Search is engrained across generations and “Google” is a verb.

Despite all the fear, it’s likely we still have search driving traffic to publishers in 2027.

However, make no mistake, publishers / affiliates / and content sites are all Wildebeests on the Serengeti.

The herd is likely to survive, but individual sites will be eaten.