AI in Google search engine reduces traffic to news sites
The use of Google AI for news search and summaries is causing a significant drop in traffic to news publishers' websites, threatening their financial situation and the quality of journalism.
The use of Google AI for news search and summaries is causing a significant drop in traffic to news publishers' websites, threatening their financial situation and the quality of journalism.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Google’s new AI features, including AI Overviews and chatbots, are increasingly replacing traditional search with links to news sites. Users can now get answers to their queries directly from chatbots, which often generate answers based on news site content, often without consent or proper attribution. This is dramatically reducing traffic to news platforms.
Google launched AI Overviews last year as a search results summary tool, which has already impacted traffic on sites that provide travel, health, and product reviews. New features like AI Mode, Google’s answer to ChatGPT, provide conversational-style answers with fewer external links, further compounding the problem.
According to Similarweb, the share of organic search traffic to The New York Times sites fell to 36,5% in April 2025, down from 44% three years ago. Other major publishers, such as The Atlantic and The Washington Post, are already noting the need for rapid changes in business models to adapt to new challenges.
Some publications have begun to strike deals with companies specializing in artificial intelligence. For example, The New York Times signed a contract with Amazon to license content for training AI platforms, and The Atlantic is working with OpenAI. Startup Perplexity plans to share advertising revenue with publishers when their content is used in chatbots.
Despite criticism from the media, Google claims that its AI features increase overall search engine traffic, although this does not always translate into benefits for news platforms. The decline in conversions threatens the economic sustainability of media and the preservation of quality journalism, requiring the search for new ways to monetize and interact with AI technologies.
We previously reported on a bug in the AI Overviews system. The tool, which is supposed to provide users with answers from AI, was giving out incorrect information for several days in a row. It was calling 2024 the current year. The company acknowledged the error and has already fixed it.
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