Google’s AI Overviews Having A ‘Devastating Impact’ On Website Traffic

Google’s AI-generated summaries are slashing traffic to news and information sites, creating a “devastating impact” on their clicks.

A new study news-audiences-study-finds?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social_img&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawLvJlVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHpYo_-e3URYUAJwEvH5utYgx6Ghkovt-a5nYULcPOELhaTXxm2hzCrwX8_oq_aem_fw7bvBnl_SRgnLsZrGiMEg#Echobox=1753349734" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">revealed Google’s AI Overviews has triggered an 80% drop in website click-throughs, alarming media owners, The Guardian reported. By summarizing search results in a single text block, the feature provides users with the answers they need without requiring them to visit the original sites, while pushing links further down the page.

The trend is raising concerns that the tool could pose an existential threat to outlets that rely on search-driven traffic. A new analysis by Authoritas reveals that sites once ranked first in Google searches can lose nearly 80% of their traffic when results are placed below an AI-generated overview.

The study from Pew Center Research also found that YouTube, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, gets boosted visibility compared to standard search rankings. These findings were submitted as part of a legal complaint to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority by Foxglove, the Independent Publishers Alliance, and the Movement for an Open Web, citing concerns over the impact of Google’s AI Overviews on fair competition.

Foxglove director Rosa Curling said the new research highlights the “devastating impact that Google’s ‘AI overviews’ are already having on the UK’s independent news industry.”

“It would be bad enough if Google were simply stealing journalists’ work and passing it off as their own,” she said. “But worse still, they are using this work to fuel their own tools and profits, while making it harder for media outlets to reach the readers they rely on to sustain their work.”

Owen Meredith, the chief executive of the News Media Association, accuses Google of trying to keep users “within its own walled garden, taking and monetising valuable content – including news – created by the hard work of others”.

“The situation as it stands is entirely unsustainable and will ultimately result in the death of quality information online,” he said. “The Competition and Markets Authority has the toolkit to tackle these issues. It must do so urgently.”

A Google spokesperson dismissed the study as “inaccurate and based on flawed assumptions and analysis,” arguing that users simply prefer AI-powered summaries over the traditional search experience.

“People are gravitating to AI-powered experiences,

and AI features in search enable people to ask even more questions, creating new opportunities for websites to be discovered,” the spokesperson said. “We continue to send billions of clicks to websites every day, and we have not seen dramatic drops in aggregate web traffic as is being suggested.”

RELATED CONTENT: Byron Allen’s ‘Comics Unleashed’ To Fill CBS’ Late Night Slot