---
title: "The End of the Click Era: How 'Google Zero' is Changing the Fate of Independent Media and Why Buryatia is Ready for Change"
description: "Sundar Pichai acknowledged the 'Google Zero' scenario: search engines will answer questions themselves without redirecting to websites. This puts the business models of independent media at risk. How are Buryatia and other regions adapting to the new reality?"
date: 2026-06-02T11:22:00.000Z
lang: en
url: https://xab.info/en/posts/google-zero-end-of-click-era-and-fate-of-independent-media
tags: []
publisher: "XAB.info"
---

# The End of the Click Era: How 'Google Zero' is Changing the Fate of Independent Media and Why Buryatia is Ready for Change

![Journalists and editors of independent media work at computers, analyzing the impact of Google Zero on the industry](https://xab.info/media/2026/06/02/google-zero-konets-epokhi-klikov-i-sudba-nezavisimykh-smi/google-zero-konets-epokhi-klikov-i-sudba-nezavisimykh-smi-1.webp)

Google CEO Sundar Pichai made a statement that can be considered a turning point for the entire digital media industry. In an interview with the Decoder podcast, recorded immediately after the Google I/O 2026 conference, the head of the corporation effectively acknowledged the scenario that the industry calls 'Google Zero' — the gradual disappearance of search traffic for third-party websites.

Previously, Pichai avoided such formulations, but now the position has changed. The head of the company openly speaks about the transition of search to a model where artificial intelligence answers questions directly within the search results and independently performs user tasks. This means that users will increasingly rarely click on links to external resources.

### Blow to the Business Model of Independent Publications

For owners of information portals, this is stunning news. The essence of the problem is simple: previously, users went to search engines to find information and were redirected to websites. The more visits, the higher the traffic and, consequently, advertising revenue. Now, when algorithms generate answers themselves, traffic to websites may collapse, putting the existence of independent media at risk.

However, for the Russian market, this is not entirely unexpected. In Russia, Alice AI — Yandex's neural network — has long been operating and developing, demonstrating similar trends. Major publishers are already preparing for the 'next stage of internet development,' where information is consumed within the search engine itself, rather than on external pages.

### Buryatia Experience: From Party Control to Digital Giants

The situation in Buryatia has its own peculiarities. There are about a dozen popular resources operating here. Among them stands out the site burunen.ru, which holds a worthy place in the top rankings thanks to a unique business model. Its features are Russian-Buryat bilingualism, the role of a megaphone for the Mongolian-speaking world, and the presence of the RB Legal Portal. Publishing documents in this registry gives them legal force, creating a foundation upon which the life of the 'Buryad Unen' Publishing House portal rests.

Nevertheless, Pichai's forecast forces one not to rest on laurels. The history of the transformation of post-Soviet media shows that only those who know how to adapt survive. Journalists have gone through party ideological control, massive Soviet circulations, the advent of freedom of the press, and the invasion of tabloids.

### Content Evolution and Future Challenges

The internet has already changed the nature of journalists' work. As early as the late 90s, with the advent of unlimited access to the network, many began to 'leak' ready-made texts, passing them off as their own. Instead of going on a raid with the police, one could compile an article from other sources. An experienced eye could detect plagiarism, but the essence of the work changed.

Now a new era is dawning. The more answers AI provides without redirecting to links, the fewer reasons users have to open original pages. The web will not disappear completely, but it will change. As one colleague noted, perhaps we will have to 'go into construction,' but it is still possible to fight the dominance of internet giants. The main task now is to find alternative ways to interact with the audience, including with the help of the same artificial intelligence.