In the last 60 days I have had the same conversation with multiple brand founders.
They are noticing their affiliate traffic is shifting. Publishers are getting fewer organic clicks. Attribution is harder to explain. Numbers that used to make sense are starting to move.
Last week, Cloudflare put a number on it: 57.2% of HTTP requests to web content are now generated by bots. Humans are at 42.8%. Their CEO said he did not expect this until 2027.
It happened faster.
On top of that, Google is expanding AI Mode and pulling more of the buying journey inside its own ecosystem. Direct Offers, native checkout, conversational results that surface products without the user ever clicking through to a publisher's site.
The affiliate click path used to be clean: search, publisher content, affiliate click, brand site, purchase. That path still exists. But it is getting narrower at every stage.
WHAT I THINK THIS ACTUALLY MEANS
Affiliates do not go away. It never has. I have been in this industry for 17 years and I have seen it adapt to every major platform shift. This is another one.
But the programs that come out the other side will not be the ones built on thin SEO content and last-click coupon capture. They will be the ones built on trusted relationships, niche audiences, and partners who actually create demand instead of just intercepting it at the end of the funnel.
Attribution is going to keep getting messier as Google owns more of the measurement layer through GA4, Google Ads, and Merchant Center. My advice: understand your own numbers independently of any single platform. Do not let any one ecosystem own your data story.
The brands I am least worried about are the ones treating affiliate as a demand creation channel, not just a demand capture tool.
If that is how you are building, keep going. If it is not, this is a good moment to start.
If you want to build an affiliate strategy for where the industry is heading, book a free strategy call with me.
Talk soon,
Fred