Google’s AI search changes upended online publishing
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more about AI's impact on the web, follow Emma Roth. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started The digital publishing industry has relied on Google for a very long time. Many outlets spent time and money optimizing their webpages to show up at…
Key points
- Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode have coincided with sharp declines in search traffic to online publishers.
- Google says the web is thriving and click volume is relatively stable, while publishers and regulators report large drops.
- Google has made sources more prominent in AI search and is testing programs to pay publishers for their content.
Google's AI search features have coincided with falling traffic for online publishers, according to a report from The Verge. Google launched AI Overviews in 2024, placing an AI-generated summary at the top of search results with source links below it. In May 2025, it added AI Mode, which replaces the standard search engine with a chatbot-like interface that provides detailed summaries of web results.
The report says the relationship between Google and publishers, long reciprocal, has changed as publishers became dependent on an AI system that summarizes their work without guaranteeing users will click through to the source.
Traffic declines reported
A June 2025 Wall Street Journal report described declining traffic at Business Insider, The Washington Post, HuffPost and the WSJ since 2022. Similarweb data cited by the WSJ suggested search traffic to The New York Times fell from 44 percent to 35.5 percent over three years.
Digiday reported that 19 members of the trade association Digital Content Next lost Google traffic, ranging from 1 to 25 percent, between May and June 2025. DMG Media, which owns the Daily Mail and Metro, told the UK's Competition and Markets Authority that click-through rates dropped by up to 89 percent between June and July 2025, citing AI Overviews. Pew Research also found people are less likely to click links when they see an AI Overview.
From our point of view, the web is thriving.
— Nick Fox
Google's response and lawsuits
Google disputes the traffic narrative. Search head Liz Reid said click volume remained relatively stable and that AI search sends more clicks to sites with forums, videos, podcasts and posts. Senior vice president Nick Fox told the BBC, "From our point of view, the web is thriving."
Publishers worldwide have sued Google over the impact on traffic, though many suits have not succeeded. US District Judge Amit Mehta dismissed an antitrust case from Chegg and Penske Media and rejected a proposed class action from Arkansas newspapers over AI Overviews. Google has made sources more prominent in AI search and says 400 publishers, including The Washington Post, CNN, Axios and the Financial Times, are in its News AI pilot program, which licenses content.
