The historic pact that sustained the internet over the past twenty-five years is dead. For decades, the model was simple: users searched, found a link, clicked on it, and publishers monetized that visit. Today, AI has eliminated the middle step.
The founder of Miso Technologies Inc., Lucky Gunasekera, spoke about the impact of artificial intelligence on global journalism at the start of the second day of sessions at the hemispheric SIPConnect 2026 conference.
Photo: Síntesis
The historic pact that sustained the internet over the past twenty-five years is dead. For decades, the model was simple: users searched, found a link, clicked on it, and publishers monetized that visit. Today, AI has eliminated the middle step.
“When media outlets are told they will have high visibility in AI systems, the reality is very different. The actual click-through rate is barely around 1%. There is no longer a traffic argument in the AI economy. At most, there may be a debate about royalties, but traffic as we knew it has disappeared,” said Lucky Gunasekara, founder of Miso Technologies Inc., during his presentation on the impact of artificial intelligence on global journalism.
This transformation has led to a year-over-year decline of up to 30% in traditional media traffic in the United States and the United Kingdom, with projections of drops of up to 50% by 2030. The crisis is already reflected in the market, with digital media companies being sold at discounts of up to 90% compared with their pandemic-era valuations.
According to the specialist, the most serious problem is not only the loss of traffic, but also the way in which major technology companies obtain data. Gunasekara coined the term “computer fracking” to describe the massive, unregulated, and chaotic extraction of journalistic content.
The expert also warned about the existence of “technological vampires”: technology companies that operate as if the internet were a free resource. They use headless browsers, residential IP networks, and behavioral artificial intelligence to bypass paywalls and extract information without leaving a trace and without financially compensating its creators.
Faced with the decline of purely human consumption, Gunasekara pointed out that media organizations are now confronting a second audience: artificial intelligence agents and so-called technological “swarms.” Machines operate 24/7, processing information in real time.
In this new digital ecosystem, where humans and algorithms coexist, search crawlers and AI tools generate a large volume of queries. However, the expert warned that these searches lack creativity and critical judgment, which increases the value of journalistic work, original reporting, investigations, and exclusive stories.
Gunasekara concluded that publishers now face three possible paths:
The path of commercial agreements (Deals): Accept fixed compensation from major technology companies in exchange for providing content at scale, even if this means losing the direct relationship with customers.
The path of the fortress (Fortress): Block all access and retreat behind strict paywalls. A path that could impoverish and isolate the open web.
The path of the refinery (Technological sovereignty): Build their own infrastructure. Instead of submitting to third-party fracking, media organizations should vectorize their historical archives, atomize their content, and develop their own response engines and AI-based services under direct control.
At the end of his presentation, Gunasekara urged media organizations not to limit themselves to traditional licensing agreements, but rather to fight for their own exchange economy in which they control the telemetry, access, and value of their information.
“If you don’t like fracking, the simple answer is to build your own refinery and beat them at their own game,” he concluded.
