Google's AI search features are killing traffic to publishers

a year ago

Google's AI Overviews and chatbots are reducing traffic to news publishers by providing direct answers without requiring clicks on links.
Referrals to news sites are declining, impacting publishers' ability to sustain quality journalism.
AI Overviews, launched last year, has already affected traffic to sites like vacation guides, health tips, and product reviews.
Google's AI Mode, a ChatGPT competitor, is expected to further reduce traffic by providing conversational responses with fewer external links.
The New York Times saw its organic search traffic share drop from 44% to 36.5% between 2022 and 2025.
Google claims AI Overviews boosts search traffic, but this may not benefit publishers.
Publishers like The Atlantic and The Washington Post are urging the industry to quickly shift business models to counter AI threats.
Some publishers are forming content-sharing deals with AI companies for additional revenue, such as The Times with Amazon and The Atlantic with OpenAI.
Perplexity plans to share ad revenue with news publishers when its chatbot surfaces their content.

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