Google AI search cuts publisher traffic — SkimNews
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- Google launched AI Overviews in 2024, placing AI-generated summaries at the top of search results with source links below, reducing click-throughs to publishers’ websites.
- AI Mode, introduced in May 2025, replaced standard search with a chatbot-style interface that delivers detailed summaries from web results, further diminishing direct traffic to external sites.
- Publishers including The Washington Post, HuffPost, and The New York Times saw significant traffic declines, with Similarweb data showing search referrals to the Times dropping from 44% to 35.5% between 2022 and 2025.
- DMG Media, owner of Daily Mail and Metro, reported up to an 89% drop in click-through rates from Google search between June and July 2025, attributing the loss to AI Overviews.
- Google began testing a program to pay publishers for content used in AI Overviews and AI Mode, with 400 publishers—including CNN, Axios, and the Financial Times—joining its News AI pilot to license content for AI training.
- Publishers have responded by opting out of AI features, leaning on newsletters and subscriptions, and filing lawsuits, though major legal challenges have been dismissed by US courts.
Why it matters: Online publishers are losing a core traffic engine as Google shifts to AI summaries that reduce clicks, while Google resists structural compensation despite pilot payments to 400 publishers—altering the economic foundation of digital journalism without regulatory or legal checks so far.
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