Is Google Killing News Sites? Publishers Fear AI-Powered Search

It might soon be the end for Google News publishers. Google announced on Tuesday that it will be integrating its new AI Search overview feature with its search results page. This means that users will no longer have to click through to sites to look for the information they might be looking for.

On the surface, that might sound convenient for users, but news publishers, many of whom are still struggling to get any traffic due to Google’s algorithm change, will likely experience an even greater decline in web traffic as well as a drop in their revenue. 

Why spend time clicking on a link when Google has already scoured the internet and harvested the relevant information with its AI?

Google’s message was loud and clear. And just within hours of the Mountain View announcement, the whole news industry sounded the alarm.

According to a statement by Daniel Coffey, the Chief Executive of News/Media Alliance, “This will be catastrophic to our traffic, as marketed by Google to further satisfy user queries, leaving even less incentive to click through so that we can monetize our content.”

Coffey’s organization, which represents more than 2,000 news publishers, has taken an aggressive posture toward this decision made by Google. He also commented, “The little traffic we get today will be further diminished, and with a dominant search engine that’s cementing its market power, we once again have to adhere to their terms. This time with a product that directly competes with our content, using our content to fuel it. This is a perverse twist on ‘innovation.’”