The pattern is real and widespread
As answers get synthesized, questions that used to produce a click now get resolved without one. Informational traffic falls while the people who actually need a supplier still arrive. Total sessions drop and revenue doesn’t.
Don’t react to the wrong number
A traffic decline triggers a response — more content, more spend — that addresses a metric rather than a problem. The number worth defending is enquiries, which is why it belongs at the top of what you measure.
Losing the visits that were never going to buy is not a problem. Reporting it as one is.
Check the composition, not the total
Segment by page type. If the fall is concentrated in explanatory content and your commercial pages hold, you are seeing the shift rather than a decline. If your service and pricing pages fell too, that is a genuine problem.
Being the source still matters
Content that no longer earns a click can still be what the answer was built from, and that is what gets you named. This is why appearance rate is the measurement that replaces rankings.
Shift the content mix
Move effort from broad explanatory pieces toward the decision-stage questions where people still want a supplier — comparisons, costs, and how to choose. Those are the questions worth answering in this environment.
Reset expectations with whoever reads the report
Explain the change before the quarterly review, not during it. A board seeing a traffic chart fall without context will fund the wrong response — the same framing problem as explaining any AI project upward.