The Publisher's AI Dilemma: Train Your Future Killer vs. Lose SEO Traffic Now!"

If you’re a publisher, you are currently caught in the most aggressive catch-22 in the history of the open web.

The reality is stark: AI LLMs are indexing your content to build products that will eventually let users avoid visiting your site altogether. But if you block the crawlers, at least Google’s, you lose your current SEO traffic, the lifeblood of your audience growth and ad revenue.

"Google is effectively telling publishers, 'let us train your future killer or we'll kill you now.'"

Jacob Cohen Donnelly, Founder of A Media Operator

The sentiment is clear. Publishers are providing the raw materials for their own disruption.

"Publishers are not a data source. They are the critical supply chain. And supply chains eventually send invoices."

Matthew Scott Goldstein, Consultant at .msg

But until those invoices get paid, what is the strategic pivot? The industry standard advice is to "own your audience"; move from anonymous web traffic to known users via email, SMS, and apps.

The "Community" Trap vs. The UX Solution

While "owning your audience" is sound advice, it’s incomplete. Collecting an email address isn't a magic shield against your AI-driven obsolescence. You never truly own an audience; you only earn the right to contact them.

This is where a comment from Deborah Carver really stood out to me. She argued that the "pivot to community" is often too quaint to scale. Instead, the battleground is design and functionality.

"Publishers have to compete with AI systems on the interface and usability level, not spam their current audiences with more emails and push notifications... Make search better and more reliable on publisher sites than on Google... Charge more for better contextual advertising, just like in the print days."

Deborah Carver, Creator of The Content Technologist

This is the missing link in the conversation. It isn't just about having a direct connection to your audience; it's about providing them with an incredible experience.

Why Design Will Define Winners in 2026

OpenAI and Google need fresh content to stay relevant. Google is leveraging its search infrastructure to get it for free. But there is one thing an LLM cannot scrape: A unique, premium user experience.

This brings us to what we are seeing at Wellput.

When we look at performance data across the newsletter landscape, a clear pattern emerges: Poorly designed newsletters are almost always the worst-performing ones for our advertisers.

If your newsletter looks cluttered, generic, or difficult to read, your audience treats it as a commodity. They skim, they ignore, and they certainly don't click on sponsorship placements.

Our Take

If I were to make one recommendation for newsletter operators looking toward 2026, it is this: Stop obsessing over the volume of your subscribers, opens, and clicks, and start obsessing over design.

You need to provide an experience so amazing and unique that your audience wants to engage with you directly, rather than asking a chatbot for a summary of your work.

• Audit your UX: Is your newsletter a joy to read, or a wall of text?

• Contextual Value: Are you creating a premium environment where ads feel like recommendations, or cheap programmatic slots?

In an AI world, content is becoming a commodity. Experience is the only luxury left.

If you want help identifying ways to improve your newsletter design, reach out at cswerdloff@wellput.io and include a recent copy of your newsletter.

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