When Frank Pine searched Google for a link to a news article two months ago, he found artificial intelligence-generated paragraphs on the topic at the top of his results. To see what he wanted, he had to scroll through them.
The experience irked Mr. Pine, editor in chief of Media News Group and Tribune Publishing, which owns 68 daily newspapers across the country. Now these paragraphs scare him.
In May, Google announced that AI-generated summaries, which compile content from news sites and blogs on the searched topic, would be made available to everyone in the United States. And the change has Mr. Pine and many other publishing executives worried that paragraphs pose a great danger to their fragile business model, by dramatically reducing the amount of traffic to their sites from Google.
“It potentially stifles the original creators of the content,” Mr. Pine said. The feature, AI Overviews, appears to be another step toward generative AI replacing “the posts they cannibalized,” he added.
Media executives have said in interviews that Google has left them in a frustrating position. They want their sites to be listed in Google search results, which for some media outlets can generate more than half of their traffic. But that means Google can use their content in AI preview summaries.
Publishers could also try to protect their content from Google by prohibiting its web crawler from sharing snippets of content from their sites. But then their links would appear without any description, making people less likely to click.
Another alternative – refusing to be indexed by Google and not appearing on its search engine at all – could be fatal to their business, they said.
“We can’t do that, at least right now,” said Renn Turiano, chief product officer at Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper publisher.
Still, the AI insights, he said, “are greatly damaging to everyone except Google, but especially to consumers, small publishers, and the large and small businesses that use the results of research “.
Google said its search engine continues to deliver billions of visits to websites, providing value to publishers. The company also said it failed to feature its AI summaries when it was clear users were looking for news information.
Liz Reid, Google’s vice president of search, said in an interview before the AI previews were introduced that there were signs of hope for publishers during testing.
“We continue to see that people often click on links in AI previews and explore,” she said. “A website that appears in AI Overview actually generates more traffic” than a website that just has a traditional blue link.
Thursday afternoon, Mrs. Reid wrote in a blog post that Google would limit AI previews to a narrower set of search results after producing high-profile errors, but added that the company was still committed to improving the system.
AI-generated summaries are the latest area of tension between tech companies and publishers. The use of articles from news sites has also sparked a legal battle over whether companies like OpenAI and Google violated copyright law by taking the content without permission to build their AI models .
The New York Times sued OpenAI and its partner Microsoft in December, alleging copyright infringement over news content related to the training and maintenance of AI systems. Seven newspapers owned by Media News Group and Tribune Publishing, including the Chicago Tribune, filed a similar suit against the same technology companies. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied any wrongdoing.
AI Overviews is Google’s latest attempt to catch up with rivals Microsoft and OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, in the AI race.
More than a year ago, Microsoft placed generative AI at the heart of its search engine, Bing. Google, fearing to play with its cash cow, initially took a more cautious approach. But the company announced an aggressive rollout of the AI feature at its annual developers conference in mid-May: by the end of the year, more than a billion people would have access to the technology.
AI Previews combine statements generated from AI models with content snippets from live links across the web. Summaries often contain excerpts from multiple websites while citing sources, giving comprehensive answers without the user ever having to click to another page.
Since its inception, the tool has not always been able to differentiate between accurate articles and satirical messages. When it recommended users put glue on pizza or eat rocks for a balanced diet, it caused an uproar online.
Publishers said in interviews that it’s too early to see a difference in traffic coming from Google since the AI previews arrived. But the News/Media Alliance, a trade group for 2,000 newspapers, sent a letter to the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, urging the agencies to investigate Google’s “misappropriation” of news content and to prevent the company from deploying AI previews.
Many publishers said the rollout underscored the need to develop direct relationships with readers, including getting more people to sign up for digital subscriptions and visit their sites and apps directly, and to be less reliant on search engines .
Nicholas Thompson, chief executive of The Atlantic, said his magazine is investing more in all areas where it has a direct relationship with readers, such as email newsletters.
Newspapers such as the Washington Post and the Texas Tribune have turned to a marketing startup, Subtext, which helps businesses connect with their subscribers and audiences through text messaging.
Mike Donoghue, chief executive of Subtext, said media companies were no longer chasing the biggest audience, but trying to keep their biggest fans engaged. The New York Post, one of its clients, allows its readers to exchange text messages with sports journalists on its staff as an exclusive subscriber benefit.
Then there’s the copyright dispute. It took an unexpected turn when OpenAI, which scrapped news sites to create ChatGPT, began making deals with publishers. It said it would pay companies including The Associated Press, The Atlantic and News Corp., owner of the Wall Street Journal, for access to their content. But Google, whose ad technology helps publishers make money, has yet to sign similar deals. The internet giant has long resisted calls to compensate media companies for their content, arguing that such payments would undermine the nature of the open web.
“You can’t opt out of the future, and this is the future,” said Roger Lynch, chief executive of Condé Nast, whose magazines include The New Yorker and Vogue. “I’m not disputing whether this will happen or whether it should happen, only that it should happen under conditions that will protect creators.”
He said search remained “the lifeblood and the majority of traffic” for publishers and suggested the solution to their woes could come from Congress. He asked Washington lawmakers to clarify that using content to train AI does not constitute “fair use” under current copyright law and requires a licensing fee.
Mr. Thompson of The Atlantic, whose publication announced a deal with OpenAI on Wednesday, still wants Google to pay publishers, too. Meanwhile, he said before the AI previews rolled out that despite industry concerns, The Atlantic wanted to be part of Google’s summaries “as much as possible.”
“We know traffic will decline as Google makes this transition,” he said, “but I think being part of the new product will help us minimize its decline.”
David McCabe reports contributed.
