AI search demands a new audience playbook

For publishers, one of the observations that’s often cited about AI search is that the people who click through are intentional than those who come from traditional search. In other words, sure, AI might be nuking your referral traffic, but at least the people coming from there are likely to engage, and potentially become loyal readers. And that’s true - the stats show it. But it’s an oversimplification of a interesting reality. It turns out that the audience in AI search isn’t just a blob of traffic that you need to work extra hard to get the attention of.