The father of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has issued a stark warning about the future of the internet’s economy. Speaking at the Future of AI Summit, Berners-Lee said that generative AI—the same technology powering tools like ChatGPT—is undermining the multi-billion-dollar advertising model that has long sustained the digital world. According to him, we are entering an era where AI systems, not humans, are becoming the primary consumers of online content, and that could shatter the foundations of how the web makes money.
Berners-Lee explained that the internet economy is built on a simple premise: humans view ads. This human engagement fuels the revenue streams of tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Meta, whose trillion-dollar valuations rely on massive advertising networks. However, as AI agents increasingly browse, analyze, and summarize content, real human interaction is being replaced. “If web pages are read only by large language models while humans get answers directly from them,” Berners-Lee said, “the entire business model of the web begins to collapse.”
The warning comes at a time when AI tools are already transforming online behavior. For instance, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, launched in 2022, quickly captured a portion of Google’s search market by offering direct, conversational answers instead of traditional search results. In response, Google has integrated AI-driven summaries into its Search Generative Experience (SGE) and is embedding AI features across its browser and apps to retain users. Yet, as Berners-Lee noted, this shift reduces the visibility of ads and the human traffic that sustains them.
In his September 2025 essay, “Will the Internet Remain Free?”, Berners-Lee revisited his original vision for the web as a universal, open, and free information space. When developing HTTP at CERN in 1993, he convinced the organization to release it as free intellectual property to ensure global accessibility. “Somewhere between my vision of Internet 1.0 and the rise of social networks in Internet 2.0, we took a wrong turn,” he said. “Now, standing at a new crossroads with AI, we must decide whether it will serve humanity—or control it.”
Berners-Lee also expressed concerns about power concentration and corporate dominance. In a March 2024 open letter, he warned that 35 years after the web’s creation, its trajectory is at risk due to monopolization and the lack of decentralized governance. He urged policymakers and technologists to rethink how the digital economy operates before it’s too late.
Conclusion:
Tim Berners-Lee’s message is both a warning and a call to action. As AI reshapes content consumption, the world must urgently design a new digital economy that doesn’t rely solely on ad clicks or human attention. The next era of the web—Internet 3.0—should focus on transparency, decentralization, and sustainable models where both humans and machines can coexist ethically. If the digital community fails to adapt, the very structure that keeps the internet alive could soon collapse under its own innovation.
