E-commerce brands losing revenue despite traffic drops in AI search era

Online businesses are experiencing declining website traffic due to AI search engines (like ChatGPT, Perplexity) fragmenting traditional search, but they don't understand how to maintain or grow revenue when customers bypass their sites entirely. Current SEO and traffic-focused strategies are becoming obsolete, and brands lack frameworks to monetize in an AI-mediated search landscape where direct traffic is no longer the primary conversion path.