Condé Nast is now planning its business “as if search is zero” after years of Google algorithm updates and AI overviews that reduce visits to publishers’ websites. That’s according to CEO Roger Lynch, who was interviewed on TBPN, a tech news network that bills itself as a “daily tech show” and was acquired by OpenAI in April.
What he said. Condé Nast doesn’t expect Google traffic to disappear entirely, but it no longer views search as a reliable channel, Lynch said:
- “Last year, I told our teams: imagine there is no search. You have to organize your businesses as if there is zero search.”
- “We don’t expect it to be zero… We expect it to be a single-digit percentage of our traffic. It’s very low.”
Context. Lynch described a multi-year pattern in which Google kept cutting publisher visibility beyond expectations:
- “For the last three years, we’ve done our budget, and we’ve made some predictions about the decline in search traffic… and every year it’s gone down more than we predicted.”
Why is Condé Nast’s search traffic declining? In addition to algorithm updates, he blamed AI Overviews and Google’s increasingly commercial search results.
- Search results from seven or eight years ago showed a few sponsored links and then “10 green links.”
- Today, users first see an AI overview, then “rows and rows and rows of commercial links,” Lynch said.
- Organic links appear very far down the page.
- “It’s been great for Google,” Lynch said.
It’s a different era. Google’s changes broke the old model that companies like BuzzFeed used to monetize Google and Facebook traffic, Lynch said.
Lynch said brands caught “in the middle” are struggling the most with AI and search change.
- “Today, you need to nail down a place where you have a loyal audience that is willing to pay and … If you have a product where you invest in journalism, if you have to invest heavily in journalism, supporting that with just advertising is a tough place to be.”
The answer comes from Condé Nast: It was to prioritize brands by:
- Strong target audience.
- Power of registration.
- Clear authority in a niche or category.
He also said that AI-generated “slop” could ultimately help premium publishers with reliable products and human-created journalism.
- “We will always have human-generated content. First of all, I know this is what our viewers expect and want. Second, we don’t have a competitive advantage by creating AI-generated content. That doesn’t take advantage of any advantages we have. So knowing what your competitive advantages are, and building on that, I think is important for any business.”
Why do we care. Lynch said the old model of turning search and social traffic into profitable media businesses no longer works. Publishers without loyal readers or a strong brand may struggle because Google and other platforms can change the rules at any time.
An interview. Condé Nast CEO Explains Why Human Journalism Is Succeeding in the Age of AI (search conversation starts at about 30:28)
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