There’s a compelling theory floating around that Google’s AI agent, called Deep Research, could negatively impact affiliate sites. If true, not only would this impact affiliate site earnings, it could also decrease ad revenues and web traffic and to informational sites, including to the “lucky” sites that are linked to by Google’s AI research assistant.
Gemini Deep Research
Gemini Deep Research is a new tool available to premium subscribers to Gemini Advanced. Deep Research takes a user’s queries and researches an answer on the web then generates a report. The research can be further refined to produce increasingly precise results.
Google rolled out Deep Research on December 11th. It describes it as a time-saver that creates a research plan and once approved will carry out the research.
Google explains:
“Deep Research uses AI to explore complex topics on your behalf and provide you with findings in a comprehensive, easy-to-read report, and is a first look at how Gemini is getting even better at tackling complex tasks to save you time.
Under your supervision, Deep Research does the hard work for you. After you enter your question, it creates a multi-step research plan for you to either revise or approve. Once you approve, it begins deeply analyzing relevant information from across the web on your behalf.”
Deep Research presents a report that features a summary and recommendations. If searching for a product it will summarize the pros and cons with enough data that a user won’t need to click a link to visit a site, they can just go directly to a retailer and purchase the product, thereby eliminating the possibility of a site visitor clicking an affiliate link from a review website and depriving that informational site of revenue.
According to an article by Marie Haynes on YouKnowAI, the thoroughness of the summary generated by Gemini Deep Research negates the need to visit a websites, thereby depriving the site of affiliate link revenue.
YouKnowAI explains:
“…perhaps sites like foodnetwork.com will get clicks and subsequent affiliate sales. I’ve found in my own research so far that I’m not clicking on sites as I get what I need to know from the research and then go to official sites or perhaps Amazon, or stores near me to purchase.
…The obvious question here is what happens when sites like foodnetwork.com and seriouseats.com see a reduction in traffic? “
If it’s true that Gemini Deep Research users won’t need to visit sites to make up their minds then it’s possible that this new tool will also negatively affect web traffic and advertising revenue.