Publishers are increasingly alarmed that Google’s AI Overviews — the AI-generated summaries placed at the top of search results — are reducing the number of readers clicking through to their websites.
The concern gained traction after Reach, the UK’s largest commercial news publisher, noticed unusually low engagement with a story about actress Sorcha Cusack’s departure from the BBC drama Father Brown. A year ago, such a story would have driven significant traffic. This time, readers appeared satisfied with Google’s AI summary instead of visiting Reach-owned sites like The Mirror or Daily Express.
For news organizations already grappling with shrinking advertising revenue and social-media-driven audience declines, Google search traffic remains crucial. AI Overviews, however, present information directly on the search page, reducing the incentive for users to click through.
Dr. Felix Simon, a research fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, says early signs suggest AI summaries could indeed suppress traffic. But the true impact is difficult to measure because neither Google nor publishers have released comprehensive data on click-through rates since the feature’s rollout.
As AI-generated answers become more prominent in search, publishers fear a future where their journalism fuels Google’s responses — while their websites receive fewer visitors and less ad revenue.
