AI Search Is Killing the Click. Breaker Says B2B Growth Must Move Beyond Traffic
Artificial intelligence is weakening a metric B2B marketers have long treated as evidence that content is working: the website visit. Pew Research Center found users clicked traditional search results in 8% of visits containing a Google AI summary, compared with 15% of visits without one. Links inside the AI summaries received clicks in only 1% of visits.
A company can now appear in an AI-generated answer without receiving a visit. Even when someone does click through, the visit alone may reveal little about the visitor’s identity or potential fit as a buyer. “Clicks and traffic that aren’t identifiable to a human are a poor signal,” said Ben Billups, founder and CEO of Breaker.
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AI Visibility Does Not Guarantee Demand
Large language models (LLM) are already changing how people discover online content. The Interactive Advertising Bureau found that 95% of publishers it surveyed reported moderate or significant effects from LLM-driven discovery. For marketers, that changes what visibility can tell them. Billups said businesses still need to make themselves discoverable to AI systems, but appearing in an answer does not mean the system is recommending them.
An AI response may mention several companies, compare pricing or social proof, or surface an advantage held by a competitor. That makes the value of an AI-driven referral difficult to interpret. “We don’t have visibility into the chat that led to the traffic, so there’s no way to know definitively what context AI is putting your company into,” Billups said.
AI discovery can also be less predictable than traditional search. “As AI becomes more dominant, it’s more important to be discoverable and to have positive sentiment online, but reach is less deterministic,” Billups said. “What AI thinks is relevant to one user, it may not think is relevant for another.”
Anonymous Traffic Is a Weaker Signal
Traffic volume presents a separate measurement problem because a growing share of web activity is automated. Statista reported that bots generated 53% of global web traffic in 2025. For marketers, that makes a visit less useful as a signal unless they can determine who or what produced it.
For B2B companies, actions that help establish visitor identity can provide more information about actual buyer interest. Newsletter subscriptions, resource downloads, forms, and demo requests can help marketers distinguish potential buyers from bots and determine whether a contact matches the company’s ideal customer profile (ICP).
Billups uses a hypothetical example to illustrate the difference. “Let’s say that 50% of your traffic is bots, 50% is human, and 20% of the human traffic is actually in your ICP,” he said. “Versus with a newsletter, you can know in advance that 100% of the traffic is in your ICP and human.”
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Post-Search Growth Starts With What Happens Next
Clicks still matter, but Billups says marketers should pay closer attention to what visitors encounter after arriving. What matters next is if that visit gives the business a way to identify a potential buyer and continue the conversation. “We still need clicks, but particularly in B2B, it’s the messaging that tells someone if they’re a good fit for your product,” Billups said.
Once someone subscribes to a newsletter, however, the interaction is longer than the visit. Once someone subscribes, the company can identify them, continue communicating over time, and nurture if they fit its ICP. That continuity is key in B2B, where a purchase decision may be months away. “Relationships are built on time, trust, and communication,” Billups said. “Simply knowing about a business or product is not enough.”
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