AI agents are all the rage. But what happens to advertising if they start doing our Google searches for us?
Aravind Srinivas, CEO of AI search engine Perplexity, shared a prediction today on X: as AI agents begin “conducting searches” on users’ behalf, human-driven query volume on Google will likely decline. This shift, he says, could change how people access information—and where advertisers choose to spend their budgets.
It’s not exactly a groundbreaking insight—data already shows that AI is reshaping search behavior, with more users turning to large language model platforms for answers. But what felt new in Srinivas’ post was his focus on scheduled, agentic AI tasks: assistants that automatically pull in relevant information on a user’s behalf without a prompt. That’s a step beyond today’s ChatGPT- or Perplexity-style interactions, which typically require the user to initiate each query.
Why This Matters:
This shift, while still very early on, introduces a new layer of complexity for advertisers, who may struggle to target intent in a world where queries are no longer typed, but inferred and acted on automatically.
If Srinivas is right, it also signals another challenge for Google’s core business model. He suggests that AI assistants will reduce the need for short, routine queries like “weather” or “TSLA,” replacing them with proactive alerts. The result? Lower search traffic, declining CPCs and CPMs, and a gradual shift in ad budgets toward social platforms or AI-native environments.
Experts React:
Here’s the full tweet from Srinivas:
Our Take:
Srinivas is tapping into a broader fear across the advertising world: as AI becomes the interface, not just the backend, search could lose its grip on user intent.
For marketers, it means rethinking not just what platforms they advertise on, but what counts as a signal of intent in an open AI-mediated internet.
(By the way, search isn’t the only thing not safe right now. Today, Business Insider revealed it was laying off nearly one-quarter of its staff, driven, in part, by the value and challenges presented by AI.)
