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AI & Tools

How AI Is Changing the Content Business

Creators are using AI to make more, faster. At the same time, AI search is sending fewer clicks to the open web. Both shifts change how a content business should be built.

By The Digital Owner staff · 6 min

For years, a content business had a simple engine. Make useful content. Get found in search and social. Turn some of that attention into customers.

AI is changing both ends of that engine. It is making content cheaper to produce. And it is changing how people find it. If you run a content business, or plan to, you need to understand both.

Production: most creators are already using it

In October 2025, Adobe released its first Creators' Toolkit Report, a survey of more than 16,000 creators across the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, South Korea, Japan, India and Australia.

It found that 86% of creators actively use creative generative AI. Among them, 76% said it had accelerated the growth of their business or follower base, and 81% said it helped them create content they otherwise could not have made. Adobe said top uses included editing and upscaling.

Adobe sells AI creative tools, so its framing is optimistic. But the scale of the survey makes the main point hard to argue with. AI is now a normal part of creative work.

HubSpot's 2025 AI Trends for Marketers report, based on a survey of more than 1,500 marketers, describes the same shift. It says AI has gone from "an experimental tool to an integral part" of marketing teams.

What cheaper production really means

When something becomes cheaper to make, more of it gets made. That is the part owners should think hardest about.

If you and your competitors can all produce ten articles or videos in the time it used to take to make one, volume stops being an advantage. Output that anyone can generate becomes a commodity.

What stays scarce is harder to copy: your own experience, real results, original data, a clear point of view, and the trust of a specific audience. AI can help you package these. It cannot supply them.

When everyone can produce more, volume stops being an advantage.

Distribution: search is sending fewer clicks

The second change is on the discovery side, and it is less comfortable.

Google now shows AI Overviews, summaries generated at the top of many search results. Two studies published in April 2025 measured their effect.

SEO tool maker Ahrefs analyzed 300,000 keywords and found a 34.5% drop in click-through rate for the top organic result when an AI Overview appeared. Agency Amsive analyzed 700,000 keywords and found an average drop of 15.49%, with larger declines for non-branded searches.

In July 2025, Press Gazette reported on research by Authoritas into UK publishers. It found a per-query click-through loss of almost 50% when an AI Overview appeared. That research was submitted as part of a complaint to the UK Competition and Markets Authority.

The studies use different methods and their numbers differ. But they agree on direction. When AI answers the question on the results page, fewer people click through.

Branded search holds up

There is one detail in the Amsive data that matters for owners. Branded searches were far less likely to trigger AI Overviews, at 4.79% of the time. When they did, click-through rate rose by 18.68%, according to Amsive's study.

Put plainly: people who search for you by name still come to you. People searching for generic answers increasingly get them from the AI.

How to build a content business now

None of this means content is dead. It means the old model of ranking for generic questions and monetizing the traffic is weaker. A few adjustments follow from the data.

Build a brand people search for. Branded queries hold up best. Every piece of content should make your name more memorable, not just answer a question.

Own the relationship. An email list or a community does not depend on a search algorithm. Treat each visitor as someone to bring into a channel you control.

Use AI for the work around the work. Editing, repurposing, outlines and first drafts are where the time savings are. Keep the ideas, experience and judgment yours.

Publish what AI cannot summarize. Original case studies, your own numbers, and specific opinions are harder to replace with a generated answer.

Track sources of traffic monthly. If search clicks fall, you want to know early and shift effort toward channels that still work for you.

A note on the numbers

It is worth being careful with these studies. Each looked at a different set of keywords, sites and time periods. Ahrefs compared data from March 2024 and March 2025. Amsive drew on 700,000 keywords across 10 websites in five industries. None of them can tell you exactly what will happen to your own site.

What they can tell you is the direction of travel. When three separate studies point the same way, it is sensible to plan for it rather than wait for certainty.

The bottom line

AI makes making content easier and getting found by strangers harder. Both shifts reward the same thing: a recognizable brand with an audience that comes back on purpose.

Owners who use AI to work faster while building that direct relationship will be in a stronger position than those who use it only to publish more.

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