It is late at night and I saw Logan’s post about Google launching a direct way to access AI Mode in search. This got me thinking about how Google won in the first place. If anyone knows free, it is them. And if you're like me, and grew up on the internet, you'll know that it is impossible to compete with free.
This got me to write a post on X riffing about where I think this is headed. I thought, I should memorialize it somewhere. My thoughts don't feel like a premonition, more like a foretelling of what's coming, especially given I have been posting on X about this very thing for more than a year now. I haven't felt this way about very many things in a long time, and I am excited for how AI will eventually get monetized.
Eventually, AI will be monetized with ads. It’s a matter of when, not if. Google’s AI Mode, powered by Gemini, is already blending search and action: globally rolling out AI-powered, task-capable search that books restaurants, schedules appointments, and curates event tickets directly within the interface . The result gambit shifts user behavior from clicking links to completing tasks right in Google’s ecosystem.
Google has proven that "free" is a moat. As users increasingly engage with AI Overviews and AI Mode instead of traditional search pages, organic click-through rates are plunging; a blow to affiliate marketers reliant on traffic.
I anticipate that “actions” will evolve into a powerful affiliate model. Think of it like this: when an AI assistant books your flight to Bali or reserves that dinner table, it could surface sponsored, or commission-generating; options right within the task flow . That aligns incentives neatly: agents get paid only when value is delivered. And users stay inside a smooth experience.
This is the moment of maximum leverage for B2B API products. If your service can fulfill user requests via agentic workflows: from travel and restaurants to concerts or groceries. You become a prime monetization engine for AI platforms.
Prepare for a cascade of monetization models:
Transactional affiliate fees, embedded into the AI’s task execution.
Usage-based content licensing, where providers are compensated per AI query instead of flat-fee scraping.
Hybrid approaches like subscriptions, pay-per-use, or platform-marketplace fee.
The AI monetization landscape isn’t theoretical. It is already here, accelerating. For builders and B2B API entrepreneurs, the opportunity is now: become the backbone of those agentic actions, and play a foundational role in how AI earns its keep.
Good luck to Google, and even more to us, because this is just getting started.
Fascinating times.
I write more on X, if you like more conversational takes on things or you’d like to have a conversation. You can follow me on @balabuilds or you can message me here if you have thoughts on this.