AI summaries causing ‘devastating’ drop in online news audiences, study finds

Exclusive: Analysis found that sites previously ranked first can lose up to 79% of traffic if results are displayed below a Google AI Overview

News companies have been warned of a “devastating impact” on online audiences as search results are replaced by AI summaries, after a new study claimed it caused up to 80% fewer clickthroughs.

The threat posed by Google’s AI Overviews, which summarise a search result with a block of text, has rapidly risen to the top of the concerns among media owners. Some regard it as an existential threat to outlets reliant on search result traffic.

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