We’ve been here before. First it was keyword stuffing. Then it was “write for humans, not search engines.” Then Google demanded structure, authority, and expertise. Every wave of change forced marketers to rewrite their playbooks. Content quality changed every step of the way.
Now, another shift is underway. Artificial intelligence doesn’t crawl, read, or retrieve content the way traditional search engines do. And that changes everything about how we write online.
The cultural and business implications are huge.
Search Engines Indexed Pages. Depth Gave Way to Speed.
Googlebot and other search crawlers were built to scan entire pages. Each page was indexed and then ranked based on backlinks, metadata, and keyword context. Success meant optimizing page-level performance: fast loads, clean code, structured schema.
The way we consumed the written word shifted to accommodate this process. Long form eloquent prose was replaced with straightforward, often superficial content designed to hit the right signals. Short paragraphs, keyword repetition, and formulaic structures were used to please algorithms more than readers.
This shift reshaped culture. As writing bent to the demands of algorithms, long-form prose gave way to quick, skimmable content. The result was a society that’s well-informed at speed, but often less practiced at grappling with complexity. Consequently, attention spans shortened, authority shifted from experts to rankings, and readers learned to value immediacy over depth.
Many years later Google encouraged marketers to write for authority. It pushed E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) and the Helpful Content Update, signaling that it wanted content that demonstrated depth and usefulness.
Many sites did start producing long-form content again, but not in the same way as pre-SEO prose. Instead of eloquent, exploratory essays, we got optimized “ultimate guides,” pillar pages, and 2,000-word explainers designed to check Google’s authority boxes. These often mix depth with scannability, because marketers still know that readers (and crawlers) prefer to skim.
AI Retrieves Blocks. Clarity Becomes Currency.
AI doesn’t work the same as search crawlers.
When GPTBot, GoogleOther, or any of the new AI crawlers hit your site, they’re not looking to rank you. They’re harvesting content to feed into large language models (LLMs) or retrieval systems.
Those systems don’t store “pages.” They break your content into blocks of meaning. Paragraphs, Q&A sections, and headings are converted into self-contained chunks that can be pulled later when someone asks a question.
If your best insight is buried in the fifth scroll of a rambling blog post, there’s a good chance AI won’t surface it. That’s because AI systems don’t treat your article as one long page. They split it into a few hundred-word segments and store them separately.
When someone asks a question, the system retrieves only the segments that score as most relevant. If your point is tucked away without a clear heading or signal, it may not rank high enough to be pulled.
Unlike human readers, AI doesn’t scroll for hidden gems. It lifts what’s clean, obvious, and contextually strong. If your ideas can’t stand alone, AI won’t find them.
From Pages to Blocks. From Depth to Fragments.
Just as Google shaped the last two decades of online writing, AI’s block-based retrieval is pushing us into another rewrite. Success won’t come from sprawling articles or clever keyword placement, but from content broken into clear, self-contained insights that can be lifted whole into an AI-generated answer.
Businesses, journalists, and creators will all feel the pressure to write in modular snippets designed to stand alone rather than chapters meant to flow together.
Culturally, this accelerates a trend we’ve already felt: a society fluent in fragments. Readers will encounter knowledge less as long essays and more as concise insights, organized and delivered by machines.
On one hand, this democratizes access to information. On the other, it risks flattening complexity into isolated facts, where context and nuance are stripped away. Just as SEO changed what we wrote and how we read, AI retrieval will do the same.
What Happens to Websites When AI Takes Over?
If AI chatbots can answer nearly any question instantly, do people even need to read websites?
Not in the same way.
The familiar loop of “search → click → skim” will give way to “ask → answer.”
For most everyday queries, the chatbot becomes the interface, not the browser.
That doesn’t mean websites vanish. They’ll still serve three critical roles:
- As proof of authority for machines to crawl.
- As trust signals for people who want to verify what AI delivers.
- As transaction hubs where business still happens.
Where the shift will be most visible is in blogs and thought leadership.
Long essays written to rank for AI may evolve into modular repositories of expertise that exist as clean, concise blocks to be lifted into answers. People will still click through, but often only to confirm context or evaluate credibility.
Culturally, this marks the move into a post-browsing world. Readers won’t encounter the web in a linear stream of articles and arguments. They’ll consume fragments stitched together by algorithms. We lose some of the serendipity of discovery, but we gain speed and clarity. The internet doesn’t disappear entirely, but it will become less about the journey through pages and more about the precision of blocks.
AI Delivers Answers. Humans Deliver Ideas.
AI is quickly becoming the default way people find answers. It can tell you how to file an LLC, when to fertilize your lawn, or what steps to take to troubleshoot your router. But answers aren’t the same as ideas.
People don’t just want facts. They want context, interpretation, and bold perspective. That’s where commentary and thought leadership live.
An AI might summarize the steps of a legal process, but it won’t argue why a particular strategy is smarter for your situation. It can compile market data, but it won’t take a stand on what that data means for the future of your industry.
This is why content won’t disappear. The function of reading will shift. Instead of browsing blogs for information, people will seek out voices they trust to make meaning of that information. They’ll read not to discover the “what,” but to follow the “why” and the “so what.”
For businesses, this means the role of content splits in two:
- Blocks for AI. Clean, structured expertise that can be lifted into answers.
- Narratives for people. Thought leadership that interprets, challenges, and inspires.
Authority in the AI era won’t come only from being included in answers. It will come from being the brand people turn to when they want to know what those answers mean.
What This Means for Your Business
The internet is shifting from a web of pages to a system of blocks. AI doesn’t care how polished your site looks if the substance of your expertise is buried. To stay visible, your content has to be built for retrieval. Clean, structured, and self-contained.
- Write for blocks. Every section should deliver value on its own, ready to be lifted into an AI-generated answer.
- Signal meaning. Use headings, lists, and schema so machines can clearly recognize what you’re saying.
- Prove consistency. A scattered blog strategy won’t cut it. AI looks for reinforcement across your entire body of work.
But retrieval is only half the equation.
The other half is commentary. AI can deliver answers, but it can’t take a stand or make meaning. Businesses that balance retrieval-ready blocks with bold thought leadership will surface in two ways: first in the answers people see from machines, and then in the ideas people seek from trusted voices.
The companies that adapt on both fronts will not only be present in AI-driven answers, but also become the brands buyers turn to when they want to understand what those answers mean.
AI Picks the Answers. You Shape the Meaning.
Every wave of technology rewrites the rules of marketing. AI is rewriting them now. To stay relevant, your content has to work in two directions: it must be structured so machines can lift your answers, and it must carry the commentary and perspective that people still seek from trusted voices.
At Divining Point, we help brands strike that balance. We build content that is discoverable, credible, and retrievable by AI, while also shaping the ideas and narratives that keep people engaged.
Ready to own both the answers and the ideas? Let’s talk.