AI summaries cause ‘devastating’ drop in audiences, online news media told

Exclusive: Study claims sites previously ranked first can lose 79% of traffic if results appear below Google Overview

News companies have been warned of a devastating impact" on online audiences as search results are replaced by AI summaries, after a new study claimed it caused up to 80% fewer clickthroughs.

The threat posed by Google's AI Overviews, which summarise a search result with a block of text, has rapidly risen to the top of the concerns among media owners. Some regard it as an existential threat to outlets reliant on search result traffic.