The AI advertising wars will cascade through the entire digital ecosystem—merchants, publishers, and advertisers all face structural changes to their business models.
Merchants who spent decades reducing dependence on Amazon’s marketplace fees now face a new form of platform dependency. The question isn’t whether to pay—it’s what flavor of tax to accept.
Benefit from organic discovery without paid placement
Fees refunded on returns
Risk: Transaction fees tend to grow over time, and platforms that begin with organic results eventually layer in paid placements
The strategic implication: multi-protocol integration is now table stakes.
For Publishers: Zero-Click Accelerates
If AI agents complete purchases without ever visiting a merchant’s site, the same dynamic applies to content. When a user asks ChatGPT “what laptop should I buy?” and completes the purchase without visiting a single review site, publisher advertising models collapse.
The value extraction happens at the point of synthesis, not the point of creation. Publishers are becoming suppliers to AI platforms rather than independent advertising destinations.
For Advertisers: From Impressions to Interventions
The shift from attention-based to intention-based advertising changes what “advertising” even means:
Old model: Pay for eyeballs. Measure impressions, clicks, conversions. Success meant reaching people before they decided
New model: Pay for interventions. AI determines when to surface your offer. Success means being selected by AI as the right answer at the moment of decision
Advertisers are handing targeting decisions to AI systems. Creative optimization becomes less important than offer optimization. The question isn’t “how do I make my ad stand out?” but “what offer will the AI select as the best answer to this intent?”
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
