Will traditional information websites die as AI advances?
Published on HivePostify by @badbitch · Tue Sep 08 2026
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This is a topic that's come up frequently over the years and just some days ago, I came across an X post about it.
I cannot completely recall the details but I can say that the conclusion was that information websites, or websites quite literally, are dead!
The center of the argument is that web platforms will become irrelevant as AI interfaces will absorb most user attention.
I will admit, it is interesting how people can make such flawed predictions quite boldly.
AI is not some magician, even though what it does can be considered somewhat of something not too shy of being magical.
Notwithstanding, this is an invention that's largely dependent on various things to function.
First of all, AI needs data.
Where does data come from?
People, events, and then reports on those events from people.
Consensus of truth comes from the aggregation and analysis of these collective reports and insights.
The boring detail is that first data is produced in quite a variety of ways and then a consensus ought to occur to validate the authenticity of said data.
Well now that I typed that out, it fascinates me that it sounds too interesting whilst being considered the boring factor.
But let's get a move on.
Websites, distribution and consensus
Websites put out information discovered, created or attained from events online, and that process creates a distribution and then we have a growing collection of distributed data that form a narrative that consensus can be built upon.
Now I know that the above may come off as gibberish for some, so let me translate.
A person dies, a website reports on it, then 20 more do the same, there's a chain of distribution of this data on a person's death, from this chain, a strong narrative will be evident, which will form a basis for consensus on the death.
Now, AI comes along and acquires the final product, which is the consensus and presents to users searching for this information.
What the boring detail tells us is that AI is merely taking the final product to sell to the people.
So when someone says that information websites will die because of AI advancement, they clearly have no understanding of the boring details.
Here's what is most likely to happen with AI capturing user attention.
AI will kill websites whose only competitive advantage is organizing information that already exists elsewhere.
If your revenue mostly comes from articles that answer questions such as “What is budgeting?” you might be exposed to losing money fast and potentially dying off.
We can expect a shift from attention to information ownership. Websites that can produce original content or insights effectively build a valuable dataset they can monetize in the age of AI.
In a way, AI could make much of the spam on the internet remain under-explored as only what satisfies user intent makes it into the outputs.
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Tags: #hive-167922#AI#Information#Websites#Neoxian #Pob#Cent#Ctp#Palnet#Waivo