Posted on 09/06/2025 2:55:50 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Media sites are taking action on several fronts as traffic referrals dry up and AI companies plunder their content
When the chief executive of the Financial Times suggested at a media conference this summer that rival publishers might consider a “Nato for news” alliance to strengthen negotiations with artificial intelligence companies there was a ripple of chuckles from attendees.
Yet Jon Slade’s revelation that his website had seen a “pretty sudden and sustained” decline of 25% to 30% in traffic to its articles from readers arriving via internet search engines quickly made clear the serious nature of the threat the AI revolution poses.
Queries typed into sites such as Google, which accounts for more than 90% of the search market, have been central to online journalism since its inception, with news providers optimising headlines and content to ensure a top ranking and revenue-raising clicks.
But now Google’s AI Overviews, which sit at the top of the results page and summarise responses and often negate the need to follow links to content, as well as its recently launched AI Mode tab that answers queries in a chatbot format, have prompted fears of a “Google zero” future where traffic referrals dry up.
“This is the single biggest change to search I have seen in decades,” says one senior editorial tech executive. “Google has always felt like it would always be there for publishers. Now the one constant in digital publishing is undergoing a transformation that may completely change the landscape.”
Last week, the owner of the Daily Mail revealed in its submission to the Competition and Markets Authority’s consultation on Google’s search services that AI Overviews have fuelled a drop in click-through traffic to its sites by as much as 89%.
DMG Media and other leading news organisations, including...
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Not a big fan of Google, but it is so much easier to read a Google summary than some of the sites which have one or two sentences of news, then three or four ads, then back to the article for another sentence, etc.
interesting that google is putting their cash cows out of business with their AI.
Once the cash cows are gone where will the ai get it’s current info from?
The AI will just hallucinate it up.
Google AI answers are
1) factually wrong a high percentage of the time. Example. They are flat out wrong in describing geography that has zero to do with opinion.
2) The select favorites for no logical reason. Looking for a job? There are hundreds of job sites. There is no logical reason why google AI chooses the ones they do.
3) Narrow cast the job you are looking for... and for which there are specialty job-boards...google AI ignores them infavor of generic sites.
4) In opinion, not just political opinions, but opinions about art, sports, humor ... google AI selects some but not others for no good reason.
google AI is dumbs down the people who use it and makes society as a whole inefficient, unproductive as a result.
I’m 100% with you. The AI summaries are all over the place, I am at the point of scrolling right past anything that says AI these days. Can we just go back to the original search engine that actually worked?
Free the Girbils from Girbilism....
Concern trolling by Marxist Guardian (UK). They're currently begging for money to push the Global Warming Hoax, usually it's all about President Trump.
In theory, AI is the wisdom of crowds. In practice, it's GIGO.
Well, it’s definitely garbage in...
Well, it’s definitely garbage in... it’s time to dump AI stock - it’s a liberal hobby useless at this point to most businesses.
The AI will cause the extinction of the news sites…
And then the extinction of the AI, once there are no more sites to plunder !!!!
What is the solution?
When I asked for a list of US Presidents, the AI returned a list with Biden as current President.
When I asked it for the current President, it insisted it was still Biden.
I finally got a clue and asked for its cutoff date for its knowledge !
Very disconcerting !!!
When I asked for a list of US Presidents, the AI returned a list with Biden as current President.
When I asked it for the current President, it insisted it was still Biden.
I finally got a clue and asked for its cutoff date for its knowledge !
Very disconcerting !!!
“ When the chief executive of the Financial Times ……. Yet Jon Slade’s revelation that his website had seen a “pretty sudden and sustained” decline of 25% to 30% in traffic to its articles from readers arriving via internet search engines…..”
Quit making us pay to read one article might be a way to staunch the loss of hits.
That would be Alta Vista, back in the 90s.
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