Websites could lose up to 79 percent of traffic because of Google’s “AI Overviews”, a study from analytics platform Authoritas revealed.
With AI Overviews, users get a short summary at the top of a search page which efficiently answers queries. This feature decreases the need to click onto sites and read articles to find an answer.
Authoritas’ study said that AI summaries cause up to 80 percent fewer clickthroughs, The Guardian reported.
The study also revealed that links to Google-owned sites are favoured in AI search results. Platforms like YouTube, which is owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, show up higher on search results pages.
Another analysis from the Pew Research Center confirmed these findings. Its report found that, when given an AI summary, users are less likely to click on a link that leads to a new webpage. When an AI summary was shown, only 8 percent of users clicked on a link that came up in results.
Without an AI summary, 15 percent of searches resulted in the user clicking on a search result such as a news article.
On 26 percent of pages that gave an AI summary, users exited the browser completely after getting search results.
AI Overviews may cite publishers or news organisations in its responses. However, the Pew Research Center found that only 1 percent of searches resulted in a user clicking on a source cited by the AI summary.
Similar to the findings from Authoritas, the Pew Research Center found that the most frequently cited sources in AI Overviews and traditional search results are Wikipedia, YouTube, and Reddit. With these sites at the top of the page, users are less likely to scroll and click on a news site instead.
News sites accounted for 5 percent of AI summary and traditional search results.
This is against the wider background of search behaviour changing, as users are increasingly turning to AI chatbots – like ChatGPT and Perplexity – to look for the information they need.
Insult to Injury for Publishers
The impact of Google AI Overviews, and other AI tools, on search activity is immense. As users navigate less to websites, the historical online advertising model breaks down.
For publishers, this situation is likely to get worse considering Google recently announced it was expanding the presence of its AI Overviews. The company announced the feature would be included in Google Discover, a personalised content feed within the Google app.
The summaries being included in the app means that, on the feed, users will see a synopsis of news events rather than article headlines.
The summaries flag that they have been AI-generated, and that some information may be incorrect.
Google Discover was a source of traffic for publishers, as feeds recommended news based on user interests.
The feature is rolling out in the US, with a focus on summarising lifestyle stories like sport and entertainment news.
