And we weren’t wrong. Instead of clicking on a link, people were getting direct answers from AI. Search behaviors shifted. Zero-click results surged. Content aggregators run by bots started competing for the same keywords. It felt like the audience we’d worked so hard to build was being stolen by machines.
If AI can answer any question, why would someone still come to us? The answer is we offer something that AI can’t offer. Trust. Loyalty. Human connection. Here’s what we did about it.
1. We doubled down on brand loyalty.
You can’t out-Google Google. But you can build what it can’t replicate: a relationship.
We shifted focus from generic search to branded search, a metric that tells us if someone typed “AgWeb,” “Farm Journal” or “Tyne Morgan” into Google, not just “corn prices” or “soybean forecast.” Branded search is proof that someone knows you, seeks you out and values what you offer. In a world of AI overviews and instant answers, that is the gold standard. And it worked.
2. We stopped optimizing for clicks.
Clicks don’t mean someone learned something. They don’t mean someone trusted you, remembered you or returned to your site. And they definitely don’t mean they will do business with you. We shifted our core key performance indicators (KPIs) to attention, which we measured with these metrics:
- Time on site
- Scroll depth
- Ad viewability
- Return visits
- Registrations
- Content downloads
When we measured what mattered, we started creating content differently and our audience engaged.
3. We reinvented our content machine.
AI was not just a threat, it was a tool. We turned it into a weapon that works for us, not against us.
- We used AI to edit long-form video and audio into short-form highlights.
- We launched more than 10 new podcasts to meet our audience where they are.
- We created Farm Journal TV and Farm Journal NOW to build daily habits.
- We became smarter publishers, not louder ones.
Instead of flooding the zone with content, we invested in influence that made our content harder to ignore.
4. We built for the long game.
We transformed our Kansas City headquarters office into a full-blown intelligence lab, podcast hub and media studio to serve as a resource for us, our clients and partners.
The future of influence is omnichannel. It is not about impressions, it is about impact. AI tried to eat our audience but we battled back with something better than convenience. We gave them connection.
