Here’s how 7 news audience directors are thinking about Google’s AI Overviews

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses the impact of Google's new AI-powered search feature, called "AI Overviews," on digital news outlets and their audience strategies. It explores the concerns raised by journalists and publishers about the potential misuse of their content, the spread of misinformation, and the impact on organic search traffic.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Google's AI Overviews

1. What are the key concerns raised by journalists and news publishers about Google's AI Overviews?

• Journalists and news publishers are worried that AI Overviews are using and often misrepresenting their editorial content to output answers, while pushing links to outlets out of view and disincentivizing users to click through to article pages.
• There are concerns about the factual inaccuracies and outright delusions in some of the AI-generated answers, which can undermine user trust in Google and news publishers.
• Publishers are concerned about the lack of transparency from Google on which categories of search queries will surface AI Overviews, and the lack of data on the performance of these features.

2. How have some news organizations responded to the introduction of AI Overviews?

• Some news organizations, like WNYC and Gothamist, have doubled down on building direct relationships with their audience and lessening their reliance on platforms they don't own, such as by focusing on their own apps and newsletters.
• Other publishers, like VTDigger, are closely tracking their Google traffic and visibility, looking at the share of visits from different Google products, to understand the impact of AI Overviews.
• Some experts suggest that news publishers should focus on providing high-quality, engaging content that adds value beyond a brief AI summary, as well as highlighting the human journalists behind the reporting.

[02] Impact on News Publishers

1. How are news publishers assessing the potential impact of AI Overviews on their organic search traffic?

• It's still early to determine the full impact, as publishers are doing a lot of guesswork to understand how their content is appearing in AI Overviews and what the effect is on traffic.
• Some publishers, like VTDigger, have seen a slight decline in clicks on stories that were included in AI Overviews, even as impressions remained steady, suggesting users are reading the overview and not feeling the need to click through.
• Experts suggest that the impact may vary depending on the type of content and the specific search queries, with some news-related queries still yielding AI Overviews without links to the original sources.

2. What are some of the broader concerns about the impact of AI Overviews on the news industry?

• There are concerns that AI Overviews could incentivize unscrupulous websites to scrape news content, publish AI-generated rewrites, and outrank legitimate publishers in search results.
• Some experts worry that the environmental impact of the compute power required to generate AI Overviews at scale is significant and should be considered.
• There are also concerns that if Google continues to prioritize AI Overviews over traditional search results, it could negatively impact the ability of news publishers to reach new audiences through organic search.