Many website owners and publishers are concerned that Google’s artificial intelligence search tools will lead to a dramatic decrease in traffic, the Financial Times reported.
Google’s AI Overviews generates summaries that appear at the top of search results for some queries. The experience lessens the need to click through to source material.
“Like everyone, we have definitely felt the impact of AI Overviews. There is only one direction of travel; not only are AIs getting better, but they’re getting better in an exponential fashion,” Sean Cornwell, CEO of British-based Immediate Media, told the Financial Times.
“It’s only heading in one direction, and we’ve got to assume that the drop-offs are going to be pretty stark at some point in the next few years.”
First rolled out last year in the U.S., AI Overview was introduced in the U.K. last month.
Pew Research Center analysis recently found that Google users rarely clicked on the sources cited for searches that resulted in an AI-generated summary.
“Search traffic is no longer a given,” Douglas McCabe, a media analyst, said in the Rewriting the Media Playbook report, The Times of London reported in May.
“Many publishers have used their websites to replicate the article format. But the website itself is no longer the primary destination for consumers, as it struggles to meet expectations, while AI erodes monetization.”
A May report by Enders and the Professional Publishers Association found that AI Overviews were cannibalizing website visits, with 4 in 5 consumers relying on “zero-click search results” in at least 40% of their searches.
Neil Vogel, CEO of People Inc., the largest U.S. digital and print publisher, said Google search referrals had fallen the past five years from about 65% to near 30% of traffic even before the launch of AI Overviews and AI Mode, a conversational AI search experience, the Financial Times reported.
Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint said that for publishers, Google’s AI search tools mean “fewer readers, ad impressions, and subscription conversions.”
Google, though, disagrees.
Executives from the Big Tech company told some publishers last month that clicks from AI Overview search result pages are of a “higher quality,” with users likelier to spend more time on websites.
“We consistently direct billions of clicks to websites daily and have not observed significant drops in aggregate web traffic as is being suggested,” Google said in a statement to the Financial Times.
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