The claim
Publish AI-written review posts and earn passive affiliate commissions..
Amazon's commission cuts and AI Overviews traffic losses were major publisher stories in 2026.
How we checked
This is an evidence check, not a hands-on test. We reviewed platform rules and policies, published earnings data, regulator warnings and reporting: 5 sources, listed below.
Costs
- Start-up cost
- £10–£100/month (hosting, domain, AI tools)
- Effort
- high
What the evidence shows
Affiliate marketing still works for trusted sites with original testing. Cheap AI-written review blogs are being squeezed from both sides: Google's AI Overviews take clicks, and Amazon cut commission rates in 2025–26. Faking product tests with AI also breaks FTC endorsement rules.
Realistic earnings: Usually under £50 in the first year; many new AI-content sites never get meaningful search traffic.
Limitations
Earnings ranges are typical outcomes for a beginner, drawn from the sources; some people do far better or worse. Platform rules change often, so check the latest policy before you start.
Rarely matches what is promised.
Sources
- eMarketer (May 2026): Amazon cut affiliate commissions by up to 50% while Google's AI Overviews reduce organic traffic emarketer.com
- Summary of industry data: organic click-through fell about 61% on queries showing AI Overviews (Seer Interactive), and affiliate sites were hit in the March 2026 core update getchatads.com
- Google spam policy: pages produced at scale mainly to manipulate rankings count as scaled content abuse developers.google.com
- Glenn Gabe case studies of the August 2026 spam update: AI/programmatic and thin affiliate sites lost rankings on tens of thousands of queries gsqi.com
- SEO Sherpa: Google's May 2026 spam policy update extended to AI Overviews/AI Mode and names scaled AI content seosherpa.com
