Google’s AI Search Changes Upended Online Publishing

It is Hindsighta weekly newsletter featuring an essential story from the world of technology. To learn more about the impact of AI on the web, follow Emma Roth. Hindsight arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes Sunday at 8 a.m. ET. Register for Hindsight here.

The digital publishing industry has relied on Google for a very long time. Many media outlets have spent time and money optimizing their web pages to appear at the top of search engines, in an effort to entice readers to click on their articles or discover their websites for the first time. For years, the relationship between Google and publishers has been largely reciprocal; online publishers populated Google’s search index with content, while Google provided publications with their visibility and traffic.

But this relationship has changed. The launch of Google’s AI search features, coupled with changes to how search results are ranked, has made it more difficult for publishers to survive on traffic from Google alone. In 2024, Google rolled out AI Overviews, a feature that places an AI-generated search result summarizing pages across the web at the very top of Google Search, with links to the sources its AI system deems most useful placed below the summary. Instead of competing for clicks to the first search page, publishers have become beholden to an AI system that regurgitates results, with no guarantee that users will actually click through to the source of that information.

Although Google’s AI previews got off to a rocky start, the feature immediately sparked concerns among publishers, with the News/Media Alliance saying it would be “catastrophic” for web traffic. A 2024 survey from Press journal found that Google AI Previews appeared for nearly a quarter of news-related searches in May 2024. In August, the news outlet found that AI Previews had begun to impact publisher viewability by replacing media sites that previously held the top spots on Google’s search engine for certain queries.

A future in which Google could eventually stop sending traffic to outside sites on the web is only getting closer as the company develops its vision of AI-powered search. In May 2025, the company launched AI Mode, a feature that replaces Google’s standard search engine with a chatbot-like interface that provides detailed summaries of results across the web.

The concerns raised by the News/Media Alliance were real: traffic to online publishers plummeted following the launch of Google’s AI search features. A June 2025 report from The Wall Street Journal revealed how traffic to Business Insider, The Washington Post, HuffPostand the WSJ itself has declined since 2022. Data from analytics firm Similarweb suggests that search traffic to The New York Times fell from 44 percent to 35.5 percent in three years, the WSJ reported.

A report of Digiday pointed to similar declines at Digital Content Next (DCN), a trade association that represents news outlets and media companies like Bloomberg, The Associated Press, The New York TimesCondé Nast and Vox Media. Between May and June 2025, DCN says 19 of its members experienced a loss of traffic on Google, ranging from 1% to 25%. Digiday reported. DMG Media, owner Daily Mail And Metrotold the UK Competition and Markets Authority that click-through rates fell by up to 89% between June and July 2025, citing the impacts of AI insights. On top of all that, Pew Research found that people are “less likely” to click on links to other websites when they see a preview of AI.

These numbers stand in stark contrast to Google’s claims that its AI search features help the web. Last year, Google search head Liz Reid said the search engine’s click volume remained “relatively stable,” adding that AI search sends more clicks to different types of websites, particularly those “featuring forums, videos, podcasts and posts” from other users. Nick Fox, senior vice president of insights and insights at Google, told the BBC: “From our perspective, the web is booming. »

In addition to increased scrutiny from regulators, publishers around the world have filed lawsuits against Google, claiming the company’s AI search features negatively impact traffic. Many trials were unsuccessful. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta dismissed an antitrust case filed by Chegg and owner Penske Media The rolling stone, Billboard, The Hollywood ReporterAnd The edge. The same judge also rejected a proposed class-action lawsuit regarding AI previews filed by Arkansas newspapers.

Online publishers have had to adjust their strategies in the face of declining search traffic, with many relying on social media, newsletters and subscriptions to promote and make money from their work. Others use a toggle that allows them to opt out of appearing in AI mode and AI previews without affecting their visibility in search – an option that Google rolled out widely following an order from the UK. But that still doesn’t solve the traffic drop.

Feedback from online publishers appears to have led to some changes to Google’s AI search capabilities. The company has started making sources more prominent in AI Mode and AI Previews, as hovering over a link in either feature will display a pop-up with a list of articles and accompanying images. Another AI search change places inline links “higher in answers, more frequently.”

Google will likely continue to change how it presents sources in AI search, while also finding ways to compensate the editors who inform its results. The company says 400 publishers, including The Washington PostCNN, Axiosand the Financial Times, are now part of its News AI pilot program, which licenses content to develop new AI features. It is also testing a program that pays publishers for using their content in AI Previews and AI Mode, according to reports from The information And Digiday. It remains to be seen whether this program will be enough to restore Google’s relations with publishers.