AI Overviews could push Reddit to end its $60M-a-year deal with Google
3 hours ago
- Reddit is considering not renewing its $60 million annual data licensing deal with Google due to declining web referrals from Google's AI Overviews.
- Google's AI Overviews caused sharp drops in organic search traffic for publishers like USA Today (-50%), Politico (-23%), CNN (-25%), and Business Insider (-85%) between June 2025 and June 2026.
- AI summaries reduce click-through rates by about 60%, leading to publisher backlash and consideration of restricting data access, such as registration walls at Politico and Reuters.
- Reddit has a $70 million deal with OpenAI and is suing Perplexity for illegal data scraping using third-party vendors.
- Publishers cannot block AI training content without blocking Googlebot entirely, increasing the impact on traffic.
- UK's CMA ordered Google to allow publishers to opt out of AI summaries without losing traditional search rankings, with enforcement within nine months.