Google is in that game too with "AI Mode", stealing traffic from ChatGPT.
But as OP and other threads here highlighted, the other ~half of the gold sits in more fenced communities like WhatsApp, IG, Telegram, and other messaging and non-digital communities that are getting their "news" and "information" from viral shorts from IG, TikTok and YT Shorts.
They're going to add ads to their responses (if they didn't added it already), and people use it as search engine.