Google's AI Search Mode Launches in UK, Sparking Concerns for Web Publishers

Google launches new AI search feature in UK

However, the answers it provided seemed to be spread over a wide geographical area. It featured a handful of links to businesses, including their locations on a map, but they came lower down in the response, compared to a traditional Google search. Businesses, from retailers to news publishers, currently rely on web traffic funnelled their way from Google's search results. Firms can pay for prime spots on the results lists, as a form of advertising. A shift towards AI-generated responses, containing fewer direct links, could up-end that model. Ms Budaraju said the firm had not yet finalised how advertising revenue for AI Mode would work, or whether firms would be able to pay to be included in the response. But it is already concerning some businesses, who say people are less likely to click through to their websites via the links contained in an AI summary. Ms Budaraju disagreed with this characterisation. "I would say that I think people are going to use these technologies to unlock newer information-seeking journeys," she said. "These kind of questions didn't happen before, and now you made it really possible for people to express anything a lot more naturally." The Daily Mail claims the number of people who click its links from Google search results has fallen by around 50% on both desktop and mobile traffic since Google introduced its AI Overview feature. And a recent study by the Pew Research Centre suggested that people only clicked a link once in every 100 searches when there was an AI summary at the top of the page. Google argues the research methodology in that study was flawed.

Google triggers turmoil for web businesses with AI overhaul

Google is overhauling its dominant search engine with an "AI mode" that will no longer provide links to other websites, in a major shift expected to cause turmoil across the web. The tech giant will launch the feature in the UK from Tuesday. Instead of showing links to websites, the AI mode generates its own answers using information from around the web. The update, seen as a landmark moment for the web, is likely to lead to more turbulence for websites that have already seen huge drops in traffic from Google as the company pushes AI-driven answers into its search results. Google dominates the search market, accounting for more than 90pc of British queries, meaning much of the web relies on traffic from its results. The new AI mode, which will be made available over the coming days, acts in a similar way to chatbots such as ChatGPT, providing answers without users needing to click on other websites. The feature marks a wholesale departure from the company's foundations, which saw it crawl the web to offer users "10 blue links". Although Google will still offer its traditional search results, it will feature AI mode as an option in results, and the company has described the feature as "the future of Google search", suggesting it will increasingly prioritise it in future. AI mode will be able to recommend restaurants, help buy clothes and find information, tasks that entire web industries have been built around. Google's Hema Budaraju said that the change was "the beginning of a major shift" and would let users "find information that was previously much harder to find". However, it is likely to be seen as a new setback to web publishers that are already reeling from existing changes to Google's search engine. Over the past year, Google has started furnishing results with "AI overviews", which seek to answer queries directly and are positioned ahead of links to other websites. The Pew Research Centre said last week that searches featuring this AI overview feature only result in people clicking a link 8pc of the time, compared to 15pc for search results that do not include the feature. While the company has said its AI-generated answers continue to provide links to other sites, Pew found that people will only click them 1pc of the time. According to analytics company Similarweb, more than two thirds (69pc) of news searches do not lead to users clicking on a link. The development is likely to provoke a backlash from the websites whose data Google relies on to train its AI systems, and calls for the company to pay for the material its systems use. "This is yet another example of Google using its dominant position in search to force news publishers to allow their content to be ingested for AI," said Owen Meredith, the chief executive of the News Media Association, an industry body of which The Telegraph is a member. "If publishers want to block Google's search crawlers to stop their content from being exploited with no transparency, consent - or appropriate reward for original source material - they'll be demoted from general search listings, causing catastrophic drops in audiences. "It's a lose-lose for sources of trusted verified news and information as the dominant tech firms continue to draw yet more web traffic into their walled gardens." Publishers and artists are demanding that the Government introduce stricter rules on copyright protection to prevent AI businesses scraping their data without consent. A group of independent publishers submitted a formal complaint to British and European competition authorities earlier this month, saying Google should be forced to let websites opt out of training its AI overviews. Last week, the Competition and Markets Authority said Google has "strategic market status" in search, a designation that could lead to publishers receiving fairer terms from the company. While many chatbot companies have reached agreements with publishers to use their content, Google has largely avoided striking such deals.