Publishers Say Google’s AI Summaries Are Suppressing Clicks and Threatening Online Revenue

News publishers in the UK say Google’s AI-generated summaries on search results pages are reducing traffic to their websites and exacerbating pressure on already fragile online revenue streams.

Editors and digital chiefs at several national titles described instances where readers satisfied by the short, AI-produced overviews stopped clicking through to the original articles, costing publishers advertising and subscription opportunities. The concern has intensified after some outlets reported sharp drops in click-through rates after the rollout of the feature.

Reach, the company that owns The Mirror and the Daily Express, said the arrival of AI Overviews — also called AIO — had reduced referral traffic in cases such as coverage of the actress Sorcha Cusack leaving the BBC series Father Brown earlier this year. David Higgerson, Reach’s chief digital publisher, said publishers provided the reliable content that fuels Google but received no financial benefit when readers stopped following links to the original reporting.

A statement to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority from DMG Media, owner of MailOnline and Metro, said AIO had led to declines in click-through rates of up to 89% on some stories. Researchers at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism said anecdotal and individual datapoints suggested a problem, but added the overall scale was difficult to quantify because Google does not publish comprehensive click-through data.

"A major worry, backed by some individual datapoints, has been that AI overviews would lead to fewer people clicking through to the content behind them, with negative knock-on effects for publishers," said Dr. Felix Simon, a research fellow in AI and news at the Reuters Institute.

Stuart Forrest, global director of SEO digital publishing at Bauer Media, said publishers had long faced features on the Search Engine Results Page that reduced the need for users to visit websites, and that AI Overviews represented the next iteration of that trend. "We are definitely moving into the era of lower clicks and lower referral traffic for publishers," he said.

Publishers also flagged concern about "AI Mode," a Google feature that presents search responses conversationally and with fewer links than traditional results. Higgerson warned that wider user adoption of such modes could be "completely quite devastating for the industry." Several executives said they had not yet seen uniform traffic declines across their portfolios but were preparing for the possibility of further erosion.

Google has defended the product, saying it prioritises sending traffic to the web and continues to provide billions of clicks to websites daily. In an August blog post, Liz Reid, Google’s head of search, wrote that overall clicks from Google Search to websites had been "relatively stable" year-over-year and that AI Overviews led users to ask more complex questions and see more links on the page.

Publishers say the practical effect on their business is immediate because referral clicks are the route to ad revenue and digital subscriptions. With search providers adding summarising features, newsrooms face a new challenge: how to appear in AI-generated responses and, if included, how to convert users into paying customers.

"Google doesn't give us a manual on how to do it. We have to run tests and optimise copy in a way that doesn't damage the primary purpose of the content, which is to satisfy a reader's desire for information," Higgerson said. Other publishers emphasised investments in content quality, search optimisation, and audience development.

Some organisations have turned to regulators. In July a group including the Independent Publishers Alliance, the tech justice non-profit Foxglove and the Movement for an Open Web filed a complaint with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority. The complaint alleges Google’s AI Overviews make use of publishers' content in a way that harms the news ecosystem and requests interim measures to prevent what the coalition calls misuse of publisher content in AI responses.

In response, those in the industry are pursuing multiple strategies to diversify referrals and revenue. Reach and other publishers said they were expanding direct channels such as newsletters and messaging alerts, including WhatsApp, and experimenting with formats and headlines to improve the chance of being cited in AI summaries.

While the long-term impact remains uncertain, publishers uniformly described a shift in dynamics between content creators and platforms. Executives said the situation underlined the broader challenge of monetising original journalism when large technology companies control distribution and can surface summarised content without necessarily directing users back to the creators.

As legal and commercial conversations continue, news organisations indicated they would keep testing editorial and technical responses to the feature while seeking clearer data from search providers on how AI-generated summaries affect referral traffic.

Regulators and publishers now face a choice about whether to press for interim rules or new guidelines that would require more transparent reporting of click-throughs and more direct compensation for the use of journalistic material in AI systems. Until then, newsrooms say they will continue to adapt editorially and commercially to the changing search landscape.