The world of digital media reached a turning point in 2025. For many users of the Google search engine, for example, it no longer makes sense to click on links in search results, because Google uses AI to summarise the content of relevant pages for them. Czech users also gained access to this feature in 2025. The same applies to the deployment of AI mode, which allows users to switch the standard Google search field to a conversation mode with an intelligent chatbot modelled on ChatGPT.
Both innovations have the potential to significantly transform the way internet users consume digital content. In its recent analysis, the Association for Internet Development (SPIR) pointed to a significant decline in traffic to Czech websites from internet search engines, which are among the main sources of readers. Among other things, these findings are heightening publishers' concerns about further erosion of their business model, where trusted websites serve as one of the sources of information for artificial intelligence models, but content creators do not profit from this in any way.
More than just a bubble
But while the business of established media may have a problem with the rise of AI, an equally pressing question in 2026 will be the financial sustainability of the whole artificial intelligence craze. In this context, it is not necessarily a question of whether the events surrounding the shares of Nvidia, Alphabet, Meta or Oracle resemble an inflated bubble. As US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell pointed out, the current investment craze surrounding artificial intelligence cannot be compared to the infamous dot-com bubble at the turn of the millennium. According to Powell, the reason for this is the overall healthy business fundamentals of today's largest technology companies.
Investors can also take comfort in the fact that the boom in AI is being driven primarily by highly profitable companies that dominate their market segments. This includes internet advertising.
A new era of personalised advertising?
However, Google does not currently plan to display advertising in its advanced artificial intelligence model called Gemini. At the same time, it is testing the deployment of advertising in AI mode, which could gradually replace the current form of Googling for more and more users.
In the case of other forms of AI, however, the deployment of hyper-personalised advertising may only be a matter of time. During Christmas, The Information published a report that OpenAI is already discussing the possible form of advertising in ChatGPT. These considerations are reportedly driven by the tech company's desire not to rely solely on revenue from paid features and commercial contracts. After all, only five per cent of its 800 million regular users are paying customers.
In addition, the company has huge investment plans, with plans to spend a trillion dollars in the coming years to develop its business. OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman sees the company's IPO as one possible solution to the capital intensity of its plans. Analysts speculate that this could happen at the end of 2026, but Altman does not specify these assumptions.
However, according to his words for the Big Technology podcast, he realises that OpenAI would come under even greater scrutiny if it went public. This would also mean greater pressure on profitability from shareholders, for whom the idea of placing advertisements in ChatGPT could represent an attractive prospect for improving the financial performance of a company that has been loss-making until now.
Don't forget about cookies
While the ingenious combination of language models and advertising is still a question for the future, marketers and publishers should not lose sight of some seemingly forgotten phenomena, even in 2026. Their industry will continue to be significantly affected by the issue of third-party cookies, which Google committed to phasing out in Chrome almost five years ago. In the spring of 2025, however, it ultimately backed down from its plan, stating that it would leave users with the existing option to access cookies in their privacy settings.
As a result, however, the entire market finds itself in a "strange hybrid state," as was stated at the recent Adform summit. Some players are deploying new technologies, while others are trying to hold on to the old ones, even though their value is rapidly declining, practically overnight. However, a similar characteristic of the digital market may also be seen in the coming years in connection with the possible boom in artificial intelligence.
Source: mediaguru.cz