AI Overviews then AI Mode broke the deal between Google and the publishers: fewer clicks, unsuccessful trials, and media forced to crash on subscriptions and newsletters.
In her weekly column The Stepback, Emma Roth (The Verge) traces the deterioration of the relationship between Google and the online press. For years, the exchange was balanced: publishers fed the engine's index, which sent them readers and visibility. The arrival of AI Overviews in 2024, then AI Mode in May 2025, has changed the game by responding directly to the user, with no guarantee that they will click on the sources.
The figures cited speak for themselves: the share of traffic from search has fallen from 44% to 35.5% in three years according to the New York Times according to Similarweb, 19 members of the Digital Content Next association lost between 1 and 25% of Google traffic between May and June 2025, and DMG Media (Daily Mail, Metro) reported click-through rates down to 89%. Google maintains that the Web is "doing well," and legal challenges, such as those of Penske Media and Chegg, have so far failed. Media outlets are turning to social networks, newsletters and subscriptions, while Google is making its sources more visible, claiming 400 publishers in its News AI pilot program and testing remuneration for the content used in its responses.
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