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DMG Media called for a crackdown on Google’s AI tools recently because the publisher claims the new Google AI Overviews function has caused sharp drops in click-through rates to its news websites.

The owner of the Daily Mail told the UK Competition and Markets Authority that on a desktop, the number of visits to its websites fell by 89% when the user saw a Google AI Overview, from 25.2% of users clicking on a DMG Media article to just 2.8% of users.

It is a global issue, with Penske Media recently launching a claim against Google in court in the US. The owner of Rolling Stone, Billboard and Variety has alleged that the search engine reduces traffic to its websites and uses its journalism for AI summaries. The media company also claimed that Google only includes publishers’ websites in search results if it can also use publishers’ articles in AI summaries.

In response, Jose Castaneda, policy communications manager at Google, said: “With AI Overviews, people find Search more helpful and use it more, creating new opportunities for content to be discovered. We will defend against these meritless claims.”

According to an Enders Analysis report, Publishers’ (in)visibility problem, released in July, the likelihood of a publisher’s words triggering an AI Overview tripled between March and July, with one-third of keywords from The Sun and The Mirror triggering one. By contrast, only 16% of The Telegraph‘s keywords did the same.

The analysis firm estimated that the commercial effect would be “modest” in the short term but “likely to intensify over time”.

During Reach Plc’s investors’ call at its Q2 results, Piers North, the chief executive of the Mirror owner, said it was a “hugely complex topic” that has been reduced to “quite a binary debate”.

“In this half-year it’s not had a material impact [on Reach’s performance]. That’s not to say we’re complacent about the near or long-term future, but it’s hugely complex and it’s changing every step of the way,” North said.

“We feel the weather is changing and we will adapt. We’ve overcome different challenges in the past, whether it be the rise of the iPhone or the change in social distribution, these things come at us, but we are very adept at managing that change.”

The CMA has given Google provisional Strategic Market Status and is set to make its decision official later this year. If given, the regulator would be able to tackle conduct that could undermine fair competition and implement pro-competition interventions. 

One key note in DMG Media’s response to the CMA’s investigation said that “clear attribution and links in AI Overviews would be a huge improvement in Google’s current practices”.

If Google Zero is approaching — the point where Google stops sending traffic to third-party websites and keeps users on a results page — then “Google will no longer be able to claim that it pays for the news content it uses with referral traffic”, according to DMG Media.

In that situation, the search engine will have to “pay with cash” to maintain the value exchange, the publisher maintained.

DMG Media also wants the CMA to go one step further and include Google’s Gemini chatbot and its Google News service in its investigation.

A spokeperson for DMG Media declined to comment further when approached by Campaign.

Media buyers not worried about impact on publishers yet

Currently, media buyers say advertisers are not yet worried about the impact of AI Overviews on publishers and continue to invest in the platforms.

Emma Dibben, head of partner collaboration at Wavemaker UK, said: “We’re not seeing concern from advertisers regarding the impact of AI engines on publisher traffic.”

She added that publisher brands were vital for delivering “engaged, contextual audiences at scale”, but the challenge for them now was to ensure “‘top of funnel’ and future user discovery and engagement” as the search landscape changes. 

Dibben added that publishers would naturally face “real commercial pressure” if traffic declined significantly.

Another media buyer, who wished to remain anonymous, told Campaign that clients haven’t stopped their investment “yet” in publishers. 

AI search agents, they said, such as Google’s Gemini, haven’t gained enough market share to completely disrupt search. But they anticipated that this could change as AI platforms become more sophisticated and fewer people click on sources to check that information is legitimate.

The CMA’s final decision is due in October, but with AI Overviews here to stay, publishers need to make sure their work remains discoverable and monetisable.

SEO experts need to upskill

Stephanie Himoff, executive vice-president, global publishers at Teads, called Google’s AI Overviews a “wake-up call” for publishers who need to “stop the dependence on Google as a primary source of traffic”.

Addressing the issues with traffic, she added, requires a three-pronged approach. She said: “As a publisher, you really need to focus on your audience development acquisition programme. You need to look at the broader ecosystem of the publisher and how [each channel] can start driving each other’s traffic.”

Secondly, Himoff proposed the creation of a new discipline. Rather than SEO experts, she said publishers need people who understand how to get referrals from chatbots.

“SEO was always a very important function within the publisher. Now, they need to understand AI chatbot traffic, understand the referral, understand how to work with them, how to change the tone of voice so that they [their publication] is being picked up more often.”

Alex Walker, managing director at Havas Market, said the agency was seeing a rise in “zero-click searches”, impacting information-dense topics such as science, health, law and government the most.

He added that digital publishers need to understand where large language models (LLMs) get their sources from and added: “[They need to] invest in digital PR approaches to improve the chances of a brand being cited and ensure the right technical SEO best practices are in place.”

Thirdly, publishers should focus on the site experience. Himoff said: “One thing that we see with all those AI summaries is that it’s very generic. There’s no editorial tone, there’s no voice, there’s no context. I think if you have a site with a strong tone, editorial purpose and differentiation, people will come back. Having a strong opinion and taking brand-led journalism is going to be [the way].”

Dibben agreed: “Those with strong, distinctive media brands – cultivating direct relationships, deep affinity, or serving specialist audiences, eg B2B, are better positioned. Their audiences seek them out for unique perspectives, original reporting, or exclusive content that AI overviews are less likely to fully replicate. The more unique and proprietary the content, the more resilient the publisher.”

Accept ‘Google Zero’ is real 

Damon Reeve, chief executive at Ozone, said the idea of Google Zero is “significant” for some businesses that have “relied on [scale and referrals] over a long period of time”.

Ozone was created through a collaboration including News UK, Guardian Media Group, Telegraph Media Group and Reach.

Reeve added that most publishers Ozone works with have been investing in strategies that diversify revenue and they assume that “‘Google Zero’ is a thing and they can’t rely on referral traffic”.

As an example, he said, The Guardian didn’t need to worry as much about Google’s influence. He said: “The natural traffic direct to The Guardian is very high. So a lot of what you read is not relevant to them.”

Dibben added that publishers need to bring “engaged users directly into their own ecosystem”.

“A heightened focus on direct audience relationships and first-party data (e.g. subscriptions or partial paywall) is crucial, complemented by tools like Google Discover. Diversification of audience acquisition across platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and other social platforms is paramount, recognising fragmented search behaviours,” Dibben said.

As a buyer, she said that Wavemaker’s investment focuses on “strong publisher brands with loyal audiences, diversified revenue streams and direct relationships with advertisers”.

Ipsos Iris figures from June showed that the Daily Mail’s online audience was the biggest faller in the top ten, down 7% month on month to 20.3 million, and falling to sixth place behind the BBC, Guardian, Sun, Independent and Mirror.

However, judged by time spent and page views, the Daily Mail experienced the highest engagement among the UK commercial news publishers with 1.35 billion minutes at an average of 67 minutes per reader, versus 840 million and 36 minutes for The Guardian and 817 million and 44 average minutes for The Telegraph.

Reeve said Ozone was beginning to see an increase in the quality of the reader following the move to AI Overview in search.

He added: “The traffic that [the publishers are] seeing is actually much more long-lasting. It’s creating a much greater value as a revenue-per-user metric, which arguably is good.

“A lot of the lower-value users might be clicking the ‘back’ button a lot, [who] you might be getting from search. They’re not getting so much of that [now], they’re getting users that are actually staying with them and spending a good amount of time with the publisher again.”

Campaign contacted Google for comment and was directed to a blog post by Liz Reid, head of Google Search.

In the post, Reid said that “average click quality has increased and we’re actually sending slightly more quality clicks to websites than a year ago”.

She said that this was in contrast to “third-party reports that inaccurately suggest dramatic declines in aggregate traffic – often based on flawed methodologies, isolated examples, or traffic changes that occurred prior to the roll out of AI features in Search”.

She added: “People are also more likely to click into web content that helps them learn more – such as an in-depth review, an original post, a unique perspective or a thoughtful first-person analysis. Sites that meet these evolving user needs are benefiting from this shift and are generally seeing an increase in traffic.”

The CMA’s inquiry into Google is just one of a number of ongoing regulatory moves facing the world’s biggest advertising platform.

A US federal court has ruled that Google can retain ownership of its Chrome web browser but must open up access to critical search data for competing firms. Meanwhile, EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič has intervened to prevent the European Commission from issuing a penalty against Google for its search advertising practices amid trade threats from US president Donald Trump.

All of which suggests the battle between publishers and platforms over the use of AI is likely to remain front-page news in the months ahead.

This story first appeared on Campaign UK.