The emergence of AI tools and closed platforms will reduce the importance of advertising on the open Web, and eventually of the open Web itself.

One possible way this plays out is that attention and investment move towards proprietary ecosystems, with large AI companies being able to secure exclusive access to closed information sources while everyone else is reduced to getting what they can from a dwindling open Web.

Another possibility might be that new standards allow interoperability between AI agents and open content providers, including microtransactions between them, and creating a new marketplace for information.

https://stratechery.com/2025/the-agentic-web-and-original-si...