When Clicks Disappear: How AI Threatens Information Diversity

The problem isn't artificial intelligence itself. The problem is a creeping phenomenon that many initially dismiss as a pure media issue: clicks are disappearing. And with them, the foundation for diverse, high-quality information that businesses rely on for strategic decisions is vanishing.

What's happening right now is more than structural change in the media landscape. It's a massive business risk for mid-sized companies that receives far too little attention in strategic planning.

The Numbers Don't Lie: The "Rest of the Web" Is Dying

A particularly stark indicator of this development can be found in Google's recent quarterly results. While cloud services are growing by an impressive +48% and the search business is up +18%, the "Google Network" (advertising on third-party websites) has been shrinking for 14 consecutive quarters. The most recent quarter saw another -2% decline.

This trend is no statistical outlier. It reveals a fundamental shift: what we might call the "rest of the web", the diversity of independent websites, specialized portals, and niche offerings, is losing its economic foundation at an alarming rate.

Why This Is Dangerous for Your Digital Strategy

1. Platform Risk: Sources Lose Traffic

The mechanism is simple but brutal: when users get their answers directly from Google, ChatGPT, or other AI platforms, they no longer click through to the original sources. Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE) and similar features deliver summaries directly in search results. This is convenient for users but fatal for content creators.

No clicks, no traffic. No traffic, no advertising revenue. No revenue, no economic basis for creating high-quality content. The sources that have provided expert knowledge and specialized information are losing their business model.

For your company, this means: the information sources you've relied on until now may not exist in a few years, or will only exist in severely reduced form.

2. Quality Loss: Niche Expertise Dies Out

Specialized professional resources and independent editorial teams are particularly affected. Yet these niche sources are often the ones providing truly in-depth, industry-specific knowledge. Mainstream information is abundant, but specialized B2B expertise depends on monetization models based on traffic.

When these sources disappear, decision-makers in mid-sized companies lose access to precise, context-rich information essential for informed business decisions. The remaining information becomes more superficial, generic, and less useful for specific industry challenges.

3. The Vicious Circle: AI Undermines Its Own Foundation

Here's the irony: AI models train on exactly the content they're simultaneously depriving of its livelihood. Large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, or Google's Gemini rely on massive text corpora from the internet. When the diversity and quality of these sources decline, the quality of future AI models will suffer as well.

Fewer specialized sources means:

Less diversity in training data
More bias through overrepresentation of mainstream sources
Worse ability to understand niche topics
Higher risk of misinformation

Supply Chain Risk for Information: An Underestimated Danger

My central thesis: This is not just a media issue. It's a supply chain risk for information.

Just as companies have learned in recent years that dependence on individual suppliers or regions is dangerous, we must understand: information supply needs diversity.

When you increasingly rely on a few "single points of failure" in your information gathering (Google, ChatGPT, a handful of large platforms), you create a strategic risk:

Echo Chamber Effect: Your data foundation for decisions becomes one-sided
Quality Loss: Superficial information instead of in-depth analysis
Dependency: You're at the mercy of a few platforms' business models
Blind Spots: Niche topics and specialized knowledge become invisible

Practical Action Steps for Mid-Sized Businesses

1. Establish Information Governance

Implement clear rules for how information is sourced and validated in your organization:

Define trusted primary sources for your industry
Require multi-source verification for important decisions
Document where strategically relevant information comes from

2. Foster Critical AI Usage Behavior

Raise awareness among your teams:

AI snippets are a starting point, not a complete answer
Question generated content: Where does the information come from?
Encourage visiting original sources, not just reading summaries

3. Actively Maintain Diverse Information Sources

Consciously invest in information diversity:

Maintain subscriptions to trade publications and specialized offerings
Attend industry events and networks in person
Build direct contacts with experts
Use specialized databases and research sources

4. Rethink Your Own Content Strategy

If you create content yourself:

Focus on owned channels (newsletter, community, platforms)
Reduce dependence on organic Google traffic
Build direct relationships with your target audience

The Role of Governance in the AI Era

This topic is closely linked to comprehensive AI governance and cyber governance. It's not just about how you deploy AI, but also about ensuring that your information foundation remains robust, diverse, and reliable.

In the context of risk management, information supply is part of a company's critical infrastructure. Just as you evaluate your IT security, supply chains, and compliance structures, you should also strategically manage your information supply chains.

Conclusion: Act Now Before Diversity Disappears

The gradual erosion of information diversity on the web is a strategic risk that many companies don't yet have on their radar. The convenient AI snippet may be practical, but it cannot become the only truth in your organization.

Three concrete steps for this week:

Evaluate which information sources are used for critical business decisions
Identify single points of failure in your information gathering
Develop a strategy for diversified information sources

The diversity of the web is not a given. It's a resource that must be actively protected and cultivated. For your company, this can mean the difference between informed strategy and dangerous echo chamber.

How do you ensure in your organization that AI answers don't become the sole truth? What mechanisms do you use to preserve information diversity?