Google Adds AI Answers to Search, Threatening Online Publishers
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Google is rolling out AI-powered answers in its search results this week, prompting fears from online media publishers who rely on search traffic.
The Details: Along with “AI Overviews,” which summarize results in response to queries, Google is launching several AI upgrades, including searching via video. As The Verge (Lean Left bias) put it, “Google is redesigning its search engine — and it’s AI all the way down.”
For Context: While Google’s head of Search called the change “exciting” for users, not everyone is happy. Millions of online creators and publishers — including AllSides — rely on search for a substantial portion of their web traffic. One critic told the New York Post (Lean Right bias) Google was “flipping a switch to replace the open web with their own content.” Google previously paused image generation for its flagship AI model, Gemini, in February amid criticism of racially-confused results; the same month, AllSides confirmed its Lean Left bias rating for Google News. In March, Google restricted Gemini from answering questions about elections globally.
How the Media Covered It: Coverage appeared less common in right-rated outlets, partly because AllSides rates most tech and business outlets as Center or Lean Left. While coverage generally lacked a partisan slant, The Washington Post (Lean Left bias) stood out by predicting “carnage” for publishers.
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Right
Google upgrades search engine with ‘AI Overviews’ – risks revenue drain for media companies
Google on Tuesday unveiled a major overhaul to its flagship search engine that uses AI-generated summaries to displace the links to news stories – a move that threatens to deprive traditional media companies of much-needed revenue.
The new feature, “dubbed AI Overviews,” will debut in the US this week and provide answers to queries like “How to fix my toilet?” or “What is the best way to clean leather boots” — pushing down the set of links related to the search.
The release at its annual I/O conference will surely rankle news outlets and other...
From the Center
‘A small window of opportunity’ as publishers grapple with growing AI use
The news Monday that Google is planning to launch an update to its search engine that includes answers generated by artificial intelligence likely has news publishers, content creators and all kinds of destination websites panicking about a traffic collapse. News publishers may find they have plenty of allies in urging Congress to act and joining lawsuits against the Big Tech companies.
Still, The Washington Post predicts “carnage” as the old model — where human eyeballs look at content monetized by advertising — will end as people no longer go to particular websites for information.
“The...
From the Left
Web publishers brace for carnage as Google adds AI answers
Kimber Matherne’s thriving food blog draws millions of visitors each month searching for last-minute dinner ideas.
But the mother of three says decisions made at Google, more than 2,000 miles from her home in the Florida panhandle, are threatening her business. About 40 percent of visits to her blog, Easy Family Recipes, come through the search engine, which has for more than two decades served as the clearinghouse of the internet, sending users to hundreds of millions of websites each day.
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