Publishers Lost 26% of Their Visitors to AI Answers: What It Means for Brands Betting on Content Marketing

If artificial intelligence (AI) answers are cutting traffic to The New York Times, they are cutting traffic to your company blog too. Digital Content Next (DCN), a US trade group for digital publishers, told a federal court on 29 October 2026 that its members' unique visitors fell 26% between 2023 and 2025. My view is simple: brands in Egypt and the Gulf should stop judging content by clicks alone. Build audiences you own, write so that AI answers cite you, and publish in Arabic, where good material for AI to draw on is still harder to find.

What the publishers actually said

DCN filed a proposed amicus brief (a 'friend of the court' filing) in the copyright case that The New York Times, the New York Daily News and Ziff Davis brought against OpenAI and Microsoft. Based on a survey of its members, DCN reported:

• Unique visitors down 26% from 2023 to 2025, with total page views down 18% over the same period.
• Google search referrals down 10% year on year in an eight-week window in May and June 2025, and down 22% in the same window in 2026.
• Advertising revenue and total revenue each down 5% in 2025, at a time when advertising made up 84% of surveyed members' revenue.

These numbers need care. They come from a trade group's own survey, filed to support one side of a lawsuit, and the brief does not disclose sample sizes or methods, as both Press Gazette and PPC Land point out. The 22% figure covers eight weeks, not a full year, and the court has not yet ruled on whether the tech companies' use of content is fair use. So I treat the 26% as a strong signal from an interested party, not a settled fact.

The independent research points the same way

What makes me take the signal seriously is that independent studies point in the same direction. In a Pew Research Center study of about 900 US adults' browsing in March 2025, people clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits that showed an AI summary, against 15% when there was no summary. Only about 1% of visits included a click on a link inside the summary itself. Google called the study's method flawed.

A 2026 randomized field experiment by researchers at the Indian School of Business and Carnegie Mellon University, with more than 1,000 desktop Chrome users, found that Google AI Overviews reduced outbound organic clicks by 39.8% on the searches where they appeared. Different methods, same story: when the answer sits on the results page, fewer people leave it.

Why this matters for brands in Egypt and the Gulf

Most brand content in our region was built on the publisher model: write an article, rank on Google, count the visits. If the biggest publishers in the world are losing a quarter of their visitors, a company blog that depends on simple informational searches, such as 'what is buy now, pay later' or 'how to open a company in Riyadh', faces the same pressure. Those are exactly the questions an AI answer handles well on its own.

The real risk is not that content stops working. It is that you keep measuring it with a metric that is shrinking for everyone, decide content has 'failed', and cut the budget just as being the source an AI quotes becomes more valuable. I wrote about tracking that kind of visibility in HubSpot Now Tracks Your Brand Inside ChatGPT Answers.

Shift 1: Measure content beyond clicks

Clicks still matter, but they should not be the only line in your report. A more honest content scorecard looks like this:

• Owned audience growth: newsletter subscribers, WhatsApp channel or broadcast opt-ins, LinkedIn followers.
• AI visibility: how often your brand is mentioned or cited when you ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity the questions your buyers ask.
• Branded search: whether more people search for your brand name directly over time.
• Sales influence: how often new leads say they read or saw your content before contacting you.

None of these is perfect on its own. Together they tell you whether content is building demand, even when the 'visit' happens somewhere you cannot see.

Shift 2: Build audiences you own

If search platforms keep more of the attention, the safest place for your audience is a channel where you hold the relationship. In Egypt and the Gulf that usually means an email newsletter, a WhatsApp channel or opt-in broadcast list, and a strong LinkedIn presence for business-to-business (B2B) brands. Give every article one job beyond being read: turning a reader into a subscriber. A drop in search traffic hurts much less when a good share of your readers come back because you sent them something, not because an algorithm did.

Shift 3: Write to be cited, and write in Arabic

AI answers are built from sources, and your goal is to be one of them. In practice that means answering the question clearly in the first paragraph, using specific facts and your own data where you have them, structuring pages with clear headings and FAQs (frequently asked questions), and keeping content up to date. Generic content that repeats what ten other sites say gives an AI no reason to cite you.

The opportunity I find most interesting in our region is Arabic. In many business niches, such as fintech, B2B software or market entry, clear and specific Arabic content is still harder to find than English content. When someone asks an AI assistant a question in Arabic, the pool of strong sources is smaller, so a brand that publishes practical Arabic content on its niche has a better chance of being used. That is my argument, not a measured result, but the cost of testing it is low. If you want to see how I use these tools day to day, read The AI stack I actually use as a CMO.

FAQ

Is AI really reducing website traffic from Google?

The evidence points that way. Pew found that people click a traditional result on 8% of Google visits with an AI summary versus 15% without one, and a 2026 field experiment found that AI Overviews reduced outbound organic clicks by 39.8%. Publisher survey data, such as DCN's reported 26% fall in unique visitors, says the same, although its methods were not disclosed.

Is content marketing still worth it in 2026?

Yes, but its job changes. Content now has to build an audience you own, earn mentions inside AI answers and support sales conversations, not only bring clicks. Brands that measure it only by website visits risk cutting it just as it becomes more valuable.

How do I get my brand cited in ChatGPT or Google AI answers?

Answer specific buyer questions clearly at the top of the page, use original facts and data, structure pages with headings and FAQs, keep content current, and publish in the languages your buyers use, including Arabic. Then check regularly by asking AI assistants the questions your customers ask and noting whether your brand appears.

What should brands measure instead of website clicks?

Keep clicks, but add owned audience growth, AI visibility, branded search and sales influence to your content scorecard. That means tracking newsletter and WhatsApp opt-ins, how often ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity mention your brand, whether searches for your brand name grow, and how often leads say they saw your content. None is perfect alone, but together they show whether content is building demand.

How can a brand build an audience it owns in Egypt and the Gulf?

In Egypt and the Gulf, owned audiences usually mean an email newsletter, a WhatsApp channel or opt-in broadcast list, and a strong LinkedIn presence for B2B brands. Give every article one job beyond being read: turning the reader into a subscriber. A drop in search traffic then hurts less, because readers come back when you send them something.

Should brands in the Gulf publish content in Arabic or English?

Publish in the languages your buyers use, and do not skip Arabic. In many niches such as fintech, B2B software and market entry, clear and specific Arabic content is still harder to find than English, so an AI assistant answering in Arabic has fewer strong sources to draw on. This is an argument rather than a measured result, but the cost of testing it is low.

What mistakes should brands avoid as AI answers reduce traffic?

The biggest mistake is measuring content only by clicks, deciding it has failed and cutting the budget just as being cited by AI becomes more valuable. The second is publishing generic content that repeats what ten other sites say, which gives an AI no reason to cite you. Relying on simple informational searches alone is also risky, since AI answers handle those well without a visit.

If you want to rebuild your content plan around owned audiences and AI visibility, get in touch. This is the kind of work I do as a fractional CMO for founders in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Sources

• Data shows AI content retrieval already eating away at publisher businesses, court told (Press Gazette)
• Publisher group says AI cut visitors 26%, quoting Microsoft's 'doom loop' (PPC Land)
• Pew: Google users click less when AI summaries appear (Search Engine Roundtable)
• AI search summaries reduce link clicks for Google users (PPC Land)
• Researchers find Google AI Overviews cut publisher clicks 39.8% (PPC Land)