AI Summaries Lead to Severe Traffic Drops for Online News Sites
AI-generated summaries from Google are drastically hurting online news traffic, with reductions up to 79% reported by some sites.
Key Points
- • AI summaries can reduce online news traffic by up to 79%.
- • Users click links under AI summaries only once every 100 searches.
- • MailOnline reported drops of 56.1% in desktop traffic and 48.2% in mobile traffic due to AI summaries.
- • A legal complaint has been filed against Google, citing concerns over its impact on news outlets.
A recent analysis has revealed that AI-generated summaries by Google are causing drastic drops in online news traffic, with some publishers experiencing a staggering 79% decline. According to the study by Authoritas, AI Overviews allow users to access essential information without needing to click through to the original articles, thereby pushing traditional search results further down the page and diminishing the likelihood of clicks on links.
The findings are corroborated by a study from the Pew Research Center, which indicated that users click on links below the AI-generated summaries only once every 100 searches. In the UK, publishers such as MailOnline reported significant decreases in clickthrough rates, with drops of 56.1% on desktop and 48.2% on mobile platforms following the deployment of these AI summaries. This trend has raised alarm among media owners, who see AI Overviews as an existential threat to their business models reliant on search traffic.
In response to these concerns, Google has dismissed the analysis as flawed, asserting that it continues to drive billions of clicks to websites daily. Nevertheless, senior news executives are frustrated by Google's lack of transparency regarding the data necessary to assess the impact of these AI summaries. The rise of AI Overviews has prompted legal action, with a complaint submitted to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority by the tech justice group Foxglove, among others. They accuse Google of monopolizing access to valuable news content and threatening the sustainability of quality news.
Owen Meredith, CEO of the News Media Association, criticized Google for capitalizing on journalistic work while keeping users within its own ecosystem. He described the current state as unsustainable, calling for changes that would better support independent news outlets.