STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
You ever heard of a zero-click search? I hadn't, so I Googled it. And I got an answer without having to click on the search results, an answer generated by AI. That is a zero-click search. For the media whose journalists write the articles that power AI summaries, the lack of clicks is a disaster. Here's NPR's Bobby Allyn.
BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: You've probably seen AI Overviews. It's the text that pops up in the top spot of a Google search. It's an AI summary of information. When it became part of Google search last year, news publishers got really worried people would stop visiting websites. Without visits, advertisers would disappear, and sites would collapse. But it is convenient.
KLAUDIA JAZWINSKA: I totally understand the temptation. Why click on a bunch of sources if you can just get a summary?
ALLYN: That's Klaudia Jazwinska. She researches how AI is upending the news industry at Columbia University, and even she has trouble resisting. To help, she's installed a browser extension that blocks AI Overview from appearing at all when she's Googling on her computer. But she says it's not so easy for online news publishers.
JAZWINSKA: Publishers are kind of in a bind because if you want to opt out of AI Overviews, you opt out of Google search entirely.
ALLYN: She says online publishers see this as a Faustian bargain. Yes, they are losing traffic and money by being summarized by AI. But without Google at all, the situation is even more dire. Numbers by the analytics firm Similarweb show that HuffPost's traffic has dropped by half. Business Insider saw the same dip, which the company says led to them laying off 21% of their staff in May. Vox Media's most visited homepage is The Verge, a tech news site. Publisher Helen Havlak says AI is also coming for its traffic.
HELEN HAVLAK: So The Verge's Google traffic has been declining, and I would say a lot of that decline has lined up pretty clearly with the rise of AI Overviews.
ALLYN: Where is this all leading? Publishers fear a time when Google stops sending traffic at all to websites. It's the latest threat to the already struggling world of online publishing and journalism. The Verge is responding by doubling down on podcasts, newsletters and making its website more like social media. You can follow specific writers and topics, and it now has a short-form feed that mimics an infinite news scroll.
HAVLAK: One answer is that publishers need to behave more like platforms in and of themselves and play more platform games.
ALLYN: But before you can keep people on your site, you need to get them there. A growing body of research indicates that's becoming difficult. A recent Pew study found that when people see an AI Overview, they're half as likely to ever click a link from Google. And after people see an AI Overview answer, they're more likely to end their browsing sessions. Havlak is seeing this.
HAVLAK: Extinction-level event is already here, and a bunch of small publishers have already gone out of business.
ALLYN: Google said the methodology of the new Pew study is flawed and said it continues to send billions of clicks to websites every single day. The company claims when someone does click on a link from AI Overview, it's a more quality link, meaning they'll stick around for longer. Havlak, for one, says her site's internal data hasn't backed that up. Researcher Jazwinska says AI Overview is going to force news websites to adapt, but AI companies are striking licensing deals with publishers because AI tools summarizing the news need real human reporters.
JAZWINSKA: News content is of great demand by AI companies, and that won't go away. Chatbots cannot report. That's something that journalists can do, and robots cannot.
ALLYN: But what's also true is that there's so much AI content online right now that people are seeing AI Overview sometimes summarize other AI summaries. Maybe if that becomes the norm, clicking links will become cool again.
Bobby Allyn, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
