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Google Rolls Out AI Summaries in Discover Amid Publisher Concerns Over Traffic Declines
July 15, 2025
As publishers grow increasingly worried about shrinking traffic from Google, the search giant has begun rolling out AI-generated summaries within Discover, the primary news feed inside Google’s search app on iOS and Android. Instead of simply displaying a headline from a major news outlet, users will now see multiple publishers’ logos in the top-left corner, followed by a concise AI-crafted summary that cites those sources.
Google’s app includes a disclaimer noting that these summaries are AI-generated and “can make mistakes,” signaling that users should treat the information with caution.
While the feature isn’t yet visible for all news stories, TechCrunch has observed these AI summaries firsthand during tests across both iOS and Android apps in the U.S. When asked about the update, a Google spokesperson confirmed that this rollout is not a limited test but an official launch focused on the U.S. market. The AI summaries currently emphasize trending lifestyle topics, such as sports and entertainment, with the goal of helping users more easily decide which pages to visit.
Alongside AI summaries, Google has also experimented with alternative ways of presenting news in Discover. Some stories now include bullet point highlights under the headline, or are grouped with similar articles, although these features aren’t explicitly labeled as AI-powered. For example, a story about former President Trump’s Ukraine deal was paired with links to related stories, while a Washington Post article on ICE was accompanied by bullet points summarizing its content.
This update arrives as many publishers and startups have been exploring their own AI-driven approaches to news. Outlets like The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo, Bloomberg, and USA Today have introduced AI tools, while startups such as Particle use AI to summarize stories and enable users to view multiple perspectives or ask follow-up questions for deeper understanding.
However, despite these innovations, publishers remain deeply concerned about the impact AI is having on website traffic and referral patterns. Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode allow users to get answers directly within the search interface, reducing the need to visit individual news sites. This trend is echoed across other AI-powered apps like ChatGPT and Perplexity, which provide summarized content in chatbot formats.
In response, Google recently launched Offerwall, a tool designed to help publishers generate revenue beyond traditional ads by enabling micropayments, surveys, newsletter sign-ups, and more for content access. Still, many publishers feel these measures are arriving too late, as traffic has already plunged sharply.
A recent report from The Economist highlighted that global search traffic dropped by 15% year-over-year as of June 2025, citing data from Similarweb. The firm’s earlier data also revealed a rise in “no-click” news searches — where users don’t visit news websites — growing from 56% in May 2024, when AI Overviews launched, to nearly 69% by May 2025. Organic news visits similarly fell from a peak of over 2.3 billion in mid-2024 to under 1.7 billion.
Amid this shifting landscape, Google Discover has remained a key source of clicks even as traffic from Google Search declines. However, if AI summaries expand widely within the app, this may further reduce publisher referral traffic, intensifying challenges for news organizations trying to maintain their audiences and revenues in the AI era.
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