How ChatGPT Simultaneously Killed Traffic, Motivation, and Conversions

When ChatGPT launched in late 2022, most companies worried about one thing: losing search traffic. But on the latest episode of the Levels Podcast, Punit Jajodia, CEO of Programiz, revealed something far more insidious. ChatGPT didn't just redirect their users—it created what he calls a "triple whammy" that attacked their business from three directions at once.

For B2C founders who've built their growth engines on organic traffic, Punit's story is both a warning and a roadmap for survival.

The First Hit: Traffic Collapse

The most obvious impact came first. Programiz had spent over a decade building an authoritative content library that ranked at the top of Google for coding queries. When ChatGPT arrived, it started answering those same queries directly—no blue links required.

"Once ChatGPT came to the picture, that is when things became challenging. One, because it reduced the traffic on the website for informational queries, ChatGPT was now answering those questions without sending those people to the website. So we had a drop in the traffic."

This wasn't just about losing eyeballs. For a company that had relied heavily on ad revenue from their content site, less traffic meant less money. But Punit quickly realized the traffic loss was just the beginning of their problems.

The Second Hit: Existential Doubt

Something more dangerous was happening beneath the surface. People weren't just finding answers elsewhere—they were questioning whether learning to code mattered at all.

"The second was, in general, people started questioning whether I should even learn to code. If AI is going to write the code in the future, do I have a career in coding? That becomes a question. So the overall interest in code is now divided between AI and learning to code, or AI and Python."

This shift fundamentally challenged Programiz's value proposition. It wasn't enough to make learning easier or more accessible when potential customers were wondering if the skill itself had become obsolete. The rise of no-code tools like Airtable and Notion, along with AI-powered development platforms like Lovable and Bolt, only amplified these doubts.

"So kind of the motivation to code is now split between should I write Python or C or should I do like drag things in Zapier or I use a tool like Airtable or Notion and or should I do complete prompt based coding like lovable, Bolt and all that. So now kind of the ways in which you can build a software or achieve something using software are increasing."

The market wasn't just shrinking—it was fragmenting. Every customer Programiz might have won was now considering multiple alternative paths.

The Third Hit: Conversion Breakdown

Here's where it got really painful. Programiz had been building Programiz Pro, their paid subscription product, with a specific growth strategy in mind: drive traffic to their free content site, then convert a percentage to the paid platform.

"Another thing was, again, and this comes back to our unique experience of starting from a content site to a SaaS website is less traffic on Programiz.com also meant less traffic going to Programiz Pro and less revenue there, right?"

The entire funnel collapsed simultaneously. Fewer people searching for coding help meant fewer visitors to the content site, which meant fewer potential customers discovering Programiz Pro, which meant declining revenue on the product they'd spent years building.

This wasn't three separate problems—it was one interconnected crisis.

The Danger of Organic-Only Growth

For Punit, this experience crystallized a hard truth about organic growth strategies. What looks impressive on LinkedIn can be dangerously fragile in practice.

"I think building this kind of a growth engine where it completely depends on only organic is super dangerous. And that is the biggest lesson is, organic sounds great on LinkedIn, that I grew my business without spending a penny and all that. But in reality, if you're depending completely on just one kind of strategy, there is always a risk that something big transformational like chat GPT will happen and it will have a deep lasting impact on your business."

The lesson isn't that organic growth is bad—Programiz built an incredible business on the back of SEO. The lesson is that concentration risk applies to distribution channels just as much as it does to customers or revenue streams.

The Pivot: Meta, TikTok, and the New Reality

Facing this triple threat, Punit made a decisive call. As CEO, he set an ambitious goal: make Programiz Pro revenue dwarf the content site's ad revenue within the first year.

Getting there meant abandoning their organic-only approach and meeting users where they actually spend their time.

"I'm totally pushing all engines in one direction to get there, which means pivoting away from a completely organic dependency, SEO dependency or organic dependency to being able to push, create a growth engine on meta and on TikTok and really answering the questions where people are hanging out. People are now not hanging out on Google."

This shift required rethinking everything—not just where they acquired users, but what story they told. Instead of optimizing for search queries, they needed to address the existential questions head-on: Is coding still relevant? Why learn fundamentals when AI can write code? What makes Programiz different?

"Really answering these questions in the places where people are spending the most time, which is social. Number one, a combination of organic at paid for."

Reframing the Value Proposition

Programiz also evolved their core message. They shifted from "learn to code" to "learn to build," and eventually to "build to learn"—emphasizing that in an AI-powered world, the ability to understand, fix, and architect software matters more than ever.

Punit uses a perfect analogy: when their office coffee maker broke after 10 years, it just needed a spring replaced. But without understanding how it worked, they had to buy a new machine.

"That's what AI generated code is going to be like. It will work... But the day it broke, everything broke. So do you want your code to break at a point where you are incapable of fixing it? Maybe not."

What This Means for Other B2C Founders

If you've built your business on organic search, social media algorithms, or any single distribution channel, ChatGPT's impact on Programiz should concern you. Not because AI will necessarily disrupt your specific niche, but because it illustrates how quickly the ground can shift.

Here's what founders can learn:

Diversify your growth channels before you need to. Don't wait for a crisis to explore paid acquisition, community building, or alternative platforms. The time to build redundancy is when things are working.

Monitor existential threats to your category. Traffic metrics might look stable while your market's fundamental assumptions are shifting. Are your customers questioning whether they need what you're selling?

Understand your funnel dependencies. If one channel feeds another (like content feeding product trials), a drop at the top cascades through everything. Map these relationships explicitly.

Meet users where they actually are. Google search might have been the hub in 2011, but in 2025, attention has fragmented across TikTok, Discord, Reddit, and other platforms. Your distribution strategy should reflect reality, not nostalgia.

Programiz survived the triple threat by acknowledging it quickly and pivoting hard. Five years from now, Punit believes, refusing to adapt would have made them irrelevant. The founders who win in this new era won't be the ones who built the best SEO strategy—they'll be the ones who stayed obsessively focused on where their users are and what they actually need.

Key Points

• ChatGPT created a "triple whammy" for Programiz: reduced traffic, customer doubt about learning to code, and broken conversion funnels
• Relying solely on organic growth creates dangerous concentration risk when platforms or technologies shift
• The crisis forced Programiz to diversify into paid social (Meta, TikTok) and rebuild their growth engine
• They reframed their value proposition from "learn to code" to "build to learn" to address existential doubts
• The lesson applies broadly: diversify distribution channels before you're forced to, not after
• Understanding and fixing AI-generated code will remain valuable even as AI writes more of it

Listen to the full conversation to hear Punit's complete vision for the future of coding education and how Programiz is building community features to combat the loneliness of learning.