AI Threat: Google's Impact on Online News

Published Date : 7/9/2025 

Google's introduction of AI Overviews and AI Mode has significantly reduced traffic to news articles, sparking concerns among publishers and prompting calls for transparency and regulation. 

When the chief executive of the Financial Times suggested at a media conference this summer that rival publishers might consider a “Nato for news” alliance to strengthen negotiations with artificial intelligence companies, there was a ripple of chuckles from attendees. Yet Jon Slade’s revelation that his website had seen a “pretty sudden and sustained” decline of 25% to 30% in traffic to its articles from readers arriving via internet search engines quickly made clear the serious nature of the threat the AI revolution poses.

Queries typed into sites such as Google, which accounts for more than 90% of the search market, have been central to online journalism since its inception, with news providers optimizing headlines and content to ensure a top ranking and revenue-raising clicks. But now Google’s AI Overviews, which sit at the top of the results page and summarize responses, often negating the need to follow links to content, as well as its recently launched AI Mode tab that answers queries in a chatbot format, have prompted fears of a “Google zero” future where traffic referrals dry up.

“This is the single biggest change to search I have seen in decades,” says one senior editorial tech executive. “Google has always felt like it would always be there for publishers. Now the one constant in digital publishing is undergoing a transformation that may completely change the landscape.”

Last week, the owner of the Daily Mail revealed in its submission to the Competition and Markets Authority’s consultation on Google’s search services that AI Overviews have fueled a drop in click-through traffic to its sites by as much as 89%. DMG Media and other leading news organizations, including Guardian Media Group and the magazine trade body the Periodical Publishers Association (PPA), have urged the competition watchdog to make Google more transparent and provide traffic statistics from AI Overview and AI Mode to publishers as part of its investigation into the tech firm’s search dominance.

Publishers—already under financial pressure from soaring costs, falling advertising revenues, the decline of print, and the wider trend of readers turning away from news—argue that they are effectively being forced by Google to either accept deals, including on how content is used in AI Overview and AI Mode, or “drop out of all search results,” according to several sources.

On top of the threat to funding, there are concerns about AI’s impact on accuracy. While Google has improved the quality of its overviews since earlier iterations advised users to eat rocks and add glue to pizza, problems with “hallucinations”—where AI presents incorrect or fabricated information as fact—remain, as do issues with in-built bias, when a computer rather than a human decides how to summarize sources.

In January, Apple promised to update an AI feature that issued untrue summaries of BBC news alerts, stamped with the corporation’s logo, on its latest iPhones; alerts incorrectly claimed that the man accused of killing a US insurance boss had shot himself and that tennis star Rafael Nadal had come out as gay.

In a blog post last month, Liz Reid, Google’s head of search, said the introduction of AI in search was “driving more queries and quality clicks.” “This data is in contrast to third-party reports that inaccurately suggest dramatic declines in aggregate traffic,” she said. “[These reports] are often based on flawed methodologies, isolated examples, or traffic changes that occurred prior to the rollout of AI features in search.” However, she also said that while overall traffic to all websites is “relatively stable” she admitted that the “vast” web means that user trends are shifting traffic to different sites “resulting in decreased traffic to some sites and increased traffic to others.”

In recent years, Google Discover, which feeds users articles and videos tailored to them based on their past online activity, has replaced search as the main source of click-throughs to content. However, David Buttle, founder of the consultancy DJB Strategies, says the service, which is also tied to publishers’ overall search deals, does not deliver the quality traffic that most publishers need to drive their long-term strategies. “Google Discover is of zero product importance to Google at all,” he says. “It allows Google to funnel more traffic to publishers as traffic from search declines … Publishers have no choice but to agree or lose their organic search. It also tends to reward clickbaity type content. It pulls in the opposite direction to the kind of relationship publishers want.”

Meanwhile, publishers are fighting a wider battle with AI companies seeking to plunder their content to train their large language models. The creative industry is intensively lobbying the government to ensure that proposed legislation does not allow AI firms to use copyright-protected work without permission, a move that would stop the “value being scraped” out of the £125bn sector. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS): 

Q: What is Google's AI Overviews?

A: Google's AI Overviews are summaries that appear at the top of search results, providing users with a quick summary of the query, often negating the need to click through to the original content.

Q: How has Google's AI Overviews affected news publishers?

A: Google's AI Overviews have led to a significant decline in traffic to news articles, with some publishers reporting drops of up to 89%. This has raised concerns about the financial sustainability of news organizations.

Q: What is the 'Google zero' future?

A: The 'Google zero' future refers to a scenario where Google's AI features completely negate the need for users to click through to external sites, leading to a potential drying up of traffic referrals to news publishers.

Q: What are the concerns about AI's impact on accuracy?

A: AI systems can sometimes present incorrect or fabricated information as fact, known as 'hallucinations.' There are also concerns about in-built biases in how AI summarizes information, which can lead to inaccuracies.

Q: What is the Make It Fair campaign?

A: The Make It Fair campaign is a movement by publishers and the creative industry to lobby the government to ensure that proposed legislation does not allow AI firms to use copyright-protected work without permission, protecting the value of their content. 

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