The Open Web is Over: Here's What's Next and Why It Favors Individuals and Small Brands, not Big Companies (+7 Prompts to Help)

The open web is dying.

But none of us can agree on what’s next.

I’m writing this because I think most of the post-web conversations are missing the point. I’ve heard them, you’ve heard them. They’re fear-mongering:

• The web is dead, so we’ll never get real answers again

• The web is dead, so Google is dead too

• The web is dead, so none of us will be able to stand out in the AI slop

Turns out if you look at actual data, none of those things are true.

And that matters a lot, because we’re in a unique window right now: LLMs are literally trained to ignore major brands that are trying hard to get noticed and to farm attention toward smaller brands and (yes) individuals who have real authority and real answers in a specific area. They do this as a part of training to reduce bias and hallucination risk in LLMs.

And that means we have an opportunity now to flip the existing web power structure on its head. This is a golden opportunity before LLMs start to establish a new hierarchy.

If it sounds too good to be true, that’s fair, and that’s why I spend a fair bit of this article digging into a Princeton study on how AI visibility works (along with a number of other studies). I think we get snake oil too often in this field, and I wanted to give you both tips and HOW they work so you can understand what’s really going on.

Here’s what I’ve written up:

Seven prompts:

• Test your baseline visibility (are you showing up at all?)

• Audit your content for extraction problems (what’s blocking citations?)

• Pick one specific concept to own (not a broad domain—one insight)

• Mine your existing work for gold nuggets (what’s already citeable?)

• Check for domain mismatch penalties (are you citing outside your expertise?)

• Build an Atomic Claim Page (the structure AI systems prefer)

• Compare your visibility to competitors (where do you stand?)

Seven principles, backed by data:

• Position Bias Inversion (why top-ranked sites actually lose)

• 18-Token Extraction Pattern (why short wins)

• Institution Shadow Problem (why your employer gets credit instead of you)

• Noise Floor Paradox (why AI slop works in your favor)

• Domain Mismatch Penalty (why breadth kills visibility)

• Citation Churn (why evergreen content rots)

• Under-Optimization Strategy (why established brands need restraint)

It’s nerdy, and it’s actionable, and it works for BOTH people and brands. Yes, really. If you’re like to improve your visibility with the AI tools that are driving the future of the web, this is an actual proven path to doing that.

I’m sharing this now because the window is closing: Amplitude released an AI Visibility product that is taking the web by storm this week. The secret is starting to leak out, and people and brands are going to be figuring out how to optimize for AI quickly.

I’m also sharing this now because these principles have shaped my own strategy—the video dives into more of why I make the choices I make on the web, and how I think about AI visibility. The principles I’m sharing below shape my own approach to talking and thinking in public about AI. I thought you’d like a deep dive on my own strategic thinking as AI starts to eat the web!

If you want to grab a spot in the AI web of the future, the time is now.