Google's AI Search Squeezes Publishers for Traffic

Google’s AI-generated summaries now appear above links to publishers’ pages, shifting control over the route from a search query to a reader. Publishers supplied content for Google’s search index and relied on the company to send exposure and traffic. Now, they can’t be sure users will click through.

The platform takes the top spot

Google introduced AI Overviews in 2024, putting a generated summary at the top of Search and links to selected sources below it. The News/Media Alliance warned the change would be “catastrophic” for web traffic. A Press Gazette investigation found AI Overviews appeared in almost a quarter of news-related searches in May 2024; by August, the outlet reported that the feature had displaced media sites that previously ranked near the top for some searches.

Google launched AI Mode in May 2025, replacing the standard search interface with a chatbot-like experience that gives detailed summaries of web results. Traffic losses followed, according to the report. A June 2025 Wall Street Journal report found traffic to Business Insider, The Washington Post, HuffPost and the Wall Street Journal itself had declined since 2022. Similarweb data cited by the Journal showed search traffic to The New York Times fell from 44% to 35.5% over three years.

Figures from other publishers point in the same direction. Digiday reported that 19 members of Digital Content Next, which represents Bloomberg, The Associated Press, The New York Times, Condé Nast and Vox Media, saw Google traffic declines of between 1% and 25% from May to June 2025. DMG Media, owner of the Daily Mail and Metro, told the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority that click-through rates fell by as much as 89% from June to July 2025, citing AI Overviews. Pew Research found people were “less likely” to click links to other websites after seeing an AI Overview.

Publishers push back—and hit limits

Publishers have sued Google, alleging its AI search features hurt traffic, but many cases haven’t succeeded. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta dismissed an antitrust case brought by Chegg and Penske Media, which owns The Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter and The Verge. Mehta also rejected a proposed class-action lawsuit over AI Overviews filed by Arkansas newspapers.

Some publishers are using social media, newsletters and subscriptions to promote and earn money from their work. Those channels give them another route to readers, but the report describes them as a response to falling search traffic, not a fix for Google’s control over its own search interface.

After an order from the U.K., Google broadly rolled out an option letting publishers opt out of AI Mode and AI Overviews without losing visibility in ordinary search. The option doesn’t address declining traffic. Google has also made sources more prominent in AI Mode and AI Overviews: hovering over a link can open a pop-up listing articles with images, and another change places in-line links higher in responses more often.

A licensing offer, on Google's terms

Google says 400 publishers, including The Washington Post, CNN, Axios and the Financial Times, participate in its News AI pilot program, which licenses content for new AI features. The company is also testing a program that pays publishers for content used in AI Overviews and AI Mode, according to reports from The Information and Digiday. Whether the program will repair Google’s relationship with publishers remains uncertain.

Google’s account differs from the traffic findings. Google Search head Liz Reid said the previous year that click volume remained “relatively stable” and AI search was sending more clicks to different kinds of websites, especially those with “forums, videos, podcasts, and posts” from users. Nick Fox, Google's senior vice president of knowledge and information, told the BBC, “From our point of view, the web is thriving.”

Some AI search summaries now expand automatically for certain queries, rather than making users click “Show more.” Traditional blue links get pushed further down the page. The Wall Street Journal reported that Reddit was considering cutting off Google because of declining traffic. Common Sense Media said AI Overviews pose an “unacceptable” risk to children because summaries may fail to respond appropriately to children in crisis. For publishers and readers alike, Google’s interface increasingly decides what gets seen—and what gets buried.