Clicks Are Dead
The Practical Guide to Marketing in Web 4.0
For over two decades, the internet has operated on a simple economic model: (mostly) "free" content in exchange for attention and ad revenue. This system runs on the trilogy of searches, clicks, and website visits. Page views, click-through rates, and purchase funnels have been the metrics that mattered, powering a digital economy that today is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
But this system is starting to break down. We're seeing the emergence of Web 4.0 - a fundamental shift from a human-centric to an AI-operated internet. Where previous evolutions of the web changed how we interacted online, Web 4.0 introduces a new dimension to our digital ecosystem: AI platforms, and increasingly agents, that can understand, decide, and act on our behalf.
The evidence of this transition has been mounting rapidly in 2025. Apple's Eddy Cue testified that Safari searches dropped for the first time in 22 years, with users turning to ChatGPT and Perplexity instead of traditional search. Google's own internal documents, show the technology giant acknowledging that the decline of searching is "inevitable". Meanwhile, publishers are reporting dramatic traffic declines as Google's AI Overviews provide answers without requiring site visits. This transition is starting to gain pace, as the early majority adopts AI-powered search tools at unprecedented rates.
The Three Pillars of Zero-Click Disruption
The transition to Web 4.0 is starting to play out across the entire purchase funnel, impacting every consumer online touchpoint by removing the clicks that underpin and fund the modern web. Zero-click search eliminates the need to visit websites for information, as AI now provides answers directly. Zero-click browsing removes online navigation entirely, with AI now visiting websites autonomously on users' behalf. Zero-click purchasing will eliminate the purchase funnel entirely, with AI able to research, compare, and purchase products autonomously.
Together, these three pillars represent the systematic dismantling of the click-based economy that built the internet as we know it.
Zero-click search is already here and its growth is accelerating. Nearly 60% of Google searches now end without a click. For news searches specifically, that number jumps to 69%, quickly increasing from 56% just a few months ago. The impact on publishers, a canary in the coal mine, is already devastating. The New York Times, for example, has watched its search traffic drop from 44% to 36.5% of total traffic as AI provides answers without requiring site visits.
Zero-click browsing is also just starting to emerge. The dual launch of Perplexity's Comet browser and OpenAI's ChatGPT Agent over the last 2 weeks has introduced AI platforms that are capable of navigating websites on users' behalf, eliminating the need for traditional browsing patterns entirely. Unlike zero-click search, which provides answers from AI training data, these AI platforms visit websites autonomously, stripping away the tracking parameters and user behaviour data that powers modern web analytics.
The implications of zero-click browsing for digital marketing are hugely significant. Traditional web analytics depends entirely on URL parameters - the difference between a clean URL (site.com/page) and a tracked URL (site.com/page?utm_campaign=email&utm_source=newsletter). These URL parameters tell marketers which campaigns, emails, or social posts drove traffic, forming the backbone of attribution models and ROI calculations. When AI browsers visit sites autonomously, they strip away these tracking codes, rendering decades of established digital measurement practices obsolete overnight.
The final pillar of zero-click disruption, that is just starting to emerge, is zero-click purchasing. AI agents will soon be capable and trusted enough to make purchases on consumers' behalves. This final piece of the puzzle will completely collapse the traditional online purchase funnel, eliminating many of the touchpoints that digital marketers rely on to influence consumer decisions. According to recent research from Adobe, there has been a 1,200% increase YoY in traffic to US retail sites from generative AI sources, and the AI sales conversion gap has decreased from 43% to just 9% over the same period. This suggests that the foundation for this is already forming.
As we transition to Web 4.0, traditional digital marketing metrics will start to become meaningless. URL parameters, cookie-based attribution, and purchase funnels all depend on human browsing patterns that AI platforms don't follow. Traditional digital analytics tools will struggle to measure AI-driven business impact, creating massive blind spots in digital campaign optimisations and ROI calculations. The infrastructure that powers modern digital marketing is quickly becoming obsolete.
What Digital Marketers Need to Do Now
The shift to Web 4.0 requires an agile approach that balances quick testing with longer-term strategic decisions. The key is understanding that this transition is happening quickly and digital marketers need to begin preparing for all three 'zero-click' pillars simultaneously while maintaining their current human-facing best-practice. Priorities won't be easy to manage.
The most important thing is to consider both the scale and speed of impact of any optimisations made to your digital marketing strategy. The current reality is that there aren't many quick wins available yet - providing shopping feeds to AI platforms and implementing Model Context Protocol to help future AI agents interact with your digital services just aren't available or mature enough yet. There are however some simple optimisations that digital marketers can make now that will have big payoffs longer term with minimal effort.
Start monitoring your Algorithmic Availability - the degree to which your brand, product, or service is accessible, recognisable, and prioritised by AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Digital marketers need to go beyond simple mentions to track how AI platforms understand, represent, and contextualise your brand compared to competitors, including sentiment, accuracy, and recommendations.
Digital marketers also need to start implementing technical foundations that position your brand's content for better AI consumption. Broaden your use of schema.org markup to make more of your content prioritised by AI platforms and create llms.txt files to provide AI-specific site navigation instructions. Longer term its also worth considering creating text-only versions of your website pages that are easier for AI platforms to parse and can include AI-specific content. Remember that traditional SEO remains crucial since ChatGPT uses Bing search results and Gemini relies on Google Search - your existing optimisation efforts already directly impact AI visibility.
There are also more involved strategies that digital marketers can test that will have more immediate impact, such as building authority on platforms like Reddit, Quora, and review sites. This requires more investment but will deliver a much bigger impact on your current presence in AI platforms. Focus on authentic participation in platforms where AI platforms source information, but understand this is a sustained effort rather than a quick fix.
As zero-click browsing becomes more prevalent, start tracking referrals from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, and claude.ai as separate segments in your analytics. This AI-driven traffic will behave differently from traditional visitors and will require new measurement approaches. Begin developing attribution models that don't rely on URL parameters and monitor the conversion rates of traffic from AI platforms closely - this will give you insights into on-site optimisations you will be able to make to make using your website more AI-friendly.
To start testing for zero-click purchasing, structure your product information for direct AI consumption with comprehensive specifications and comparison data that AI platforms can easily process. Monitor how AI platforms recommend your products versus competitors - this competitive intelligence will become crucial as purchase decisions are increasingly made by AI agents. You can also start implementing and testing Model Context Protocol (MCP). If a consumer can take an action on your website, you'll want future AI agents to be able to do the same. MCP is also an interesting marketing opportunity as MCPs are 'advertised' to AI agents using natural language. Think about how you want to position your MCPs and how you can optimise their description to make your brand's services more attractive to an AI agent.
For now, the best approach balances immediate technical changes with sustained authority-building efforts, and testing new AI-based technologies such as llms.txt and MCP. The transition to Web 4.0 is already underway, and the evidence is mounting rapidly. Safari searches dropped for the first time in 22 years. Nearly 60% of Google searches end without clicks. Publishers are reporting dramatic traffic declines as AI provides answers without requiring site visits.
The click economy built the modern internet, but the transition is already underway. The digital marketers who start optimising their Algorithmic Availability, building measurement systems for an AI-operated internet, and balancing quick wins with strategic investments today will be best positioned for success as Web 4.0 continues to evolve. But remember, you need to architect for both worlds simultaneously by maintaining excellence in 'human' channels while building capabilities for an AI-mediated future.
“The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.“
William Gibson