I wonder how many of you have noticed a subtle change in the way that you navigate the web? We’re in the midst of a transition to the zero click Internet, meaning users no longer have to click on links to reach web sites to find content. Instead, big platforms are trying to supply the content people want to keep them from leaving the platform.

The example of this that most of you have encountered is Google search. When you now ask a question on Google, the first thing offered is a short answer to your question. Google has been scraping the web and responding with answers to some questions for a few years. But after Google introduced AI it now provides fairly robust response to questions.

I expect the average person is happy with most of Google answers, so they don’t click through to the web site where the answer was generated. If you are looking for a fact, the Google response is really useful. For instance, if you ask for the number of consecutive games played by Cal Ripken, Google tells you it is 2,632 games. If I don’t want any additional color for that answer, the Google response is perfect.

However, the Google response is not adequate if you ask a more complex question. I asked about the outlook for interest rates in 2025 and got the following response, “Fixed income markets anticipate that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in 2025, but not by much. Short-term interest rates are expected to end 2025 close to 4%.” I don’t know about you, but I am not going to trust Google to boil down opinions from different economist and bankers into a single opinion and a few sentences. When I asked that question, I was already prepared to read to multiple articles to get different opinions on the topic.

I find this to be a dangerous trend because many folks will take the Google response as the answer. If somebody is thinking of buying a house and using a variable-rate mortgage, they might want to know if some subset of economists are predicting a big boost in interest rates. Accepting Google’s short answer is easy, but it is not the answer. Google clearly seems to be quoting a single source, and it doesn’t even tell you who that is.

Google is not the only one doing this. Social media sites like Facebook and X started to discourage external links a few years ago so that people wouldn’t leave their platforms. When news is posted on social media it is often now a text blurb only with no link to the source.

There are several consequences of the zero click Internet. As I’ve pointed out, a lot of complex information is getting boiled down to short answers, and many folks are not digging any deeper. In a world full of disinformation, that’s a bad trend.

This also means that fewer people are reading articles and blogs, and that means a gradual diminishment of digital publishing. As AI is used to write short blurbs, even big publishers like magazines and newspapers will wane in influence, because people will be reading short summaries of articles but not the actual articles.

Perhaps the biggest change from the zero click Internet will be the death of the traditional web advertising model that measures success through clicks. When folks aren’t clicking through to web sites, advertising will have to be done and compensated in a different way. I have to imagine the current Google AI has already caused major havoc with SEO consultants who help companies attract more web traffic. Over time, domain names will become less important as people get the summary version and don’t visit websites.