News Outlets Struggle as Google AI Impacts Traffic
Source: nypost.com
Major news outlets are struggling as artificial intelligence chatbots from Google and other Big Tech companies diminish website traffic. Google has launched an “AI Overviews” feature in its search engine that favors auto-generated summaries over traditional “blue links.” Last month, the search giant released “AI Mode,” which is anticipated to worsen the problem by using chatbot-style conversations with few direct links to answer search queries.
The CEO of news outlet The Atlantic told employees earlier this year that they should expect traffic from Google to decrease significantly over time, according to a report. He stated that Google is evolving from a search engine to an answer engine and that new strategies are needed.
Decreasing traffic is negatively impacting revenue for newsrooms and contributing to layoffs. Business Insider reduced its staff by 21% last month, with the top boss stating that the move was intended to help the company withstand significant traffic declines. Traffic to Business Insider’s website decreased by 55% from April 2022 to April 2025, according to data. HuffPost has also experienced a loss of more than half of its traffic during the same period, while the Washington Post has lost nearly half its search audience.
The rollout of AI-generated summaries instead of links “is a serious threat to journalism that should not be underestimated,” according to the Washington Post CEO.
Despite the traffic losses, Google has stated that it continues to direct traffic to news sites through search. A Google spokesperson said that they send billions of clicks to websites daily and that connecting people to the web remains a priority, adding that new experiences like AI Overviews and AI Mode enhance Search and expand the types of questions people can ask, creating new opportunities for content discovery.
Critics, such as the News Media Alliance, have warned that AI Overviews and other AI features implemented by Google will have consequences for the industry. They claim that Google and other AI companies have used news content to train their chatbots without proper credit or compensation and have then used those products to reduce traffic.
The CEO and president of News Media Alliance called Google's release of AI Mode “theft.” She stated that links were the last remaining aspect of search that provided publishers with traffic and revenue and that Google now takes content without providing any return.
Google is facing pressure from the government regarding its business model, including losses in antitrust cases brought by the DOJ that could lead to a breakup of the company. A US District Judge is expected to decide by August how to break up Google’s dominance over online search after labeling the company a “monopolist” in a ruling last year. DOJ lawyers want the judge to consider the future impact of AI when determining remedies.
Google also recently lost a separate DOJ case in which it was found to have monopolies over digital advertising technology. In that case, a US District Judge found that Google’s “exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web.” The remedy phase of the digital ad tech trial will begin in September.