By Stephen Upstone, CEO & Founder, LoopMe
Generative AI is rapidly changing how people find information online. As answer engines condense multi-step browsing journeys into direct responses, traditional discovery patterns have completely transformed. Approximately 60% of searches now end without a click onwards to a website, meaning that the open web model that long underpinned digital advertising is becoming less predictable as a scalable source of reach.
With consumers now able to ask direct questions and get comprehensive answers with generative AI, they’re also saving time. This time is being redistributed across other digital environments, particularly those built around entertainment. And this evolution of user behavior has profound implications for media planning and buying.
The web is losing its grip
The open web worked well for advertisers because it produced a reliable chain. Browsing created page views, which created inventory, and supported measurable traffic flows through referrals and site visits. But by changing how discovery works, AI has weakened that chain.
With AI overviews surfacing answers at the top of the results page, consumers don’t need to go further. AdExchanger reports anecdotal evidence that some publishers are already seeing traffic declines of between 20% and 30%, with certain cases as high as 90%.
LoopMe’s research backs this up; nearly one in five people say they spend less time browsing the web since adopting AI tools. The decline is clear across all age groups, and particularly pronounced among 55-64 year olds. Among frequent AI users, around 30% now use AI more than traditional search engines. McKinsey forecasts that between 20% and 50% of traditional search traffic may be at risk as more consumer journeys resolve within AI-powered experiences.
And it’s not just the volume of web traffic that’s changing, but the composition as well. The web visits that consumers do still make are increasingly skewing toward late-stage validation rather than early-stage discovery. This means that web reach and web-measured outcomes must now be treated by advertisers as changing inputs, not fixed baselines.
Where the time goes instead
The time that consumers are saving on search is being reallocated to other digital environments. In fact, projections from eMarketer show that the time spent by the average US consumer with digital media will increase by 3.3% year-over-year in 2026, and marketers need to adapt their planning to reflect where they’re now spending their time.
LoopMe’s research found that 19% of AI users were spending more time on mobile gaming apps since adopting AI tools. Both the 18-34 and 55-64 age groups show large increases in mobile gaming, and this growth is reflected among both frequent and infrequent AI users. Streaming is another digital environment that is seeing more attention, with 16% of AI users reporting more time spent on this activity.
Mobile gaming offers huge opportunities to marketers because of how consumers behave in these environments. Sessions are immersive and focused, with users giving their full attention to a single screen. This concentration makes them more receptive to advertising, and the format allows for ads to be interactive and creative in ways that web display can’t support. Boston Consulting Group predicts that mobile gaming advertising will grow at a 9% compound annual growth rate between 2025 and 2030, and investment is starting to follow that projection.
The case for mobile gaming as incremental reach
Scale is the first question brands should ask of any channel, and mobile gaming answers it clearly. eMarketer estimates roughly 184 million Americans play games on their phones, a reach that competes with the largest digital channels. A stronger argument, though, comes from audience overlap data. LoopMe’s research found that 70% of Americans are light or non-users of web browsing, and 53% of that group plays mobile games for at least an hour a day.
Among light or non-users of social media, which represents 60% of the population, around 50% are regular mobile gamers. A similar pattern appears for YouTube and streaming audiences. As budgets concentrate in social and streaming to compensate for lost web reach, the supply of incremental audiences in those channels becomes harder to find. Mobile gaming reaches a substantial share of people who are light users of every other major channel, meaning that it will really pull its weight in a media plan.
The open web has served advertisers well, but its role is changing. Open app environments, with mobile gaming chief among them, offer the audience scale and ad quality that advertisers need. They also come with the measurement transparency that performance-focused buyers require as investment moves away from open web inventory.
What advertisers should be doing now
Marketers need to think hard about how they achieve brand presence. If more early-stage research is happening inside AI experiences, brands need to ensure their claims and product information are well-represented in the sources those AI tools draw on. Reviews and credible coverage matter more than they used to, and so does well-structured product content. Optimizing for search rankings alone isn’t enough.
Brands that redirect web budgets into social and streaming alone will face diminishing returns as more advertisers make the same move. Mobile gaming provides scaled, measurable reach among audiences who are harder to find in those channels, and currently, the mobile gaming advertising environment remains less crowded than social.
Measurement is also crucial. As the click path compresses, last-touch attribution increasingly undercounts the contributions of the upper-funnel. Advertisers must put more weight on reach and frequency tracking. Incrementality methods like holdouts and geo tests help validate causal impact, while brand outcome signals such as search lift and conversion data provide the confirmation that attribution tends to miss.
The mechanics of web discovery are changing, and consumer behavior is adjusting with them. Mobile gaming and streaming are picking up time and attention that used to flow through open-web browsing. Advertisers who treat this as a short-term anomaly will find their reach becoming less dependable over time. Those who adjust their plans now, adding mobile gaming as a scaled and measurable channel, will be better placed to maintain audience access as the digital environment continues to change.
