The deal between publishers and Google, at least implicitly, has been clear in the past: Google is allowed to capture content and use excerpts in its own search product. In return, publishers receive visitors via Google if the preview is interesting enough for users to click on.
Google has already made efforts in the past to shift this deal in its favour. Whether through Direct Answers, which allowed definitive answers to be provided directly in the SERPs (for example, for sports results, world time), vertical searches such as video search, where a large portion of traffic remains within the company, or the widespread roll-out of Knowledge Graph integrations.
These changes led to a lower click-through rate (CTR) for websites in the SERPs. However, as overall search volume continued to rise, publishing content online for free was still worthwhile for most publishers .
However, with the AI Overviews (AIO) now rolled-out in Europe, and especially with the new AI Mode just introduced in the US, this equation could fundamentally change.
For the first time, Google now has the technical ability to massively reduce traffic to external websites. And I’m sure they will take advantage of this opportunity.
In abstract terms, a large part of the internet’s success can be attributed to the elimination of intermediaries . The web eliminated multiple layers of intermediaries for goods, services, or information, but enabled more direct contact between source and destination. Thanks to AI, many publishers are now poised to do the same; many of the steps they previously performed can now be taken over by AI.
It’s no surprise, then, that Google is striking deals with original sources of information like Reddit, but is very reluctant to enter into deals with publishers. This secures Google direct access to vast amounts of user-generated content that reflects human experiences, opinions, and current discussions—a valuable treasure trove of data for training and responding to its AI. In contrast, established publishers may increasingly be viewed by Google as a downstream layer of information processing that AI can potentially bypass.
In the end, publishers will face a classic prisoner’s dilemma of game theory : By optimizing their own interests, the entire industry will lose (and Google will win). In concrete terms, this could mean that individual publishers try to strike exclusive data deals with Google, which improves their individual position in the short term but undermines the bargaining power of the entire industry. Others might be tempted to optimize their content even more aggressively for AI or move it behind stricter paywalls. However, this would only encourage Google to create its own summaries and place greater emphasis on the remaining free sources—to the detriment of everyone who relied on open access.
