The expert spoke about the dangers of quick responses in browsers for thinking

The era of Zero-click, when search engines produce ready-made answers without having to navigate to websites, poses a serious threat to people's ability to think critically and to the digital content economy. Daria Mosina, a PR specialist and head of the Mosinpress PR agency, told Izvestia about this on October 28.

According to her, the share of non-click-through queries increased from 56% in 2024 to almost 69% in 2025, which led to a 15-60% reduction in organic traffic to news sites.

According to the expert, Russian media have lost a significant part of the audience — from 2.3 billion visits in 2024 to 1.7 billion in 2025, while the click-through rate of links in some categories has halved. The topics of news, education, and science were particularly badly affected. The neural responses of search engines, in Mosina's words, become a "traffic thief", depriving users of the opportunity to get acquainted with the original sources and the author's context.

"Bloggers and content creators are most at risk in the new environment, whose materials are being replaced by short artificial intelligence responses. Tutors and tutors, who previously attracted clients through search, now become invisible to algorithms if they do not have an active presence on social networks or the media," the expert said.

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How will this affect the domestic economy

Mosina emphasized that the Zero-click Internet deprives users not only of access to original content, but also of the most important critical thinking skill. The habit of trusting the first answer without checking sources and analyzing the context can lead to the formation of a reactive, shallow thinking among the younger generation without the ability to analyze deeply.

"Major Russian media have already begun to adapt to the new reality, developing direct channels of communication with the audience through newsletters and messengers. However, according to experts, in 2025, media revenues from search advertising may decrease by 30-50%, which creates systemic challenges for the content economy," explained the PR specialist.

To preserve digital sovereignty, the expert recommends consciously supporting living authors, not limiting oneself to short summaries, creating a personal digital footprint and teaching children to doubt information, even received from artificial intelligence. According to Mosina, only the active position of users can preserve the Internet as a space of human communication and thinking.

Earlier, on October 24, German Gref, Chairman of the Board of Sberbank, said during the IX conference "More than Learning" that artificial intelligence makes it necessary to review existing educational technologies. During the session, Gref discussed fundamental changes in human thinking in the age of AI with neurophysiologist Alexander Kaplan and learning expert Nick Shackleton-Jones.

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