You may never have to read another news story in your life, thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its ability to digest web information and provide summaries on demand. This is a nightmare scenario for media companies as Google and other tech giants experiment with generative AI, which can create new content based on past data. Google recently launched Search Generative Experience (SGE), a new form of search powered by generative AI, which provides AI-generated summaries in response to certain search queries. These summaries appear at the top of the Google search homepage and include links for users to “dig deeper.” However, these developments raise concerns among publishers who are grappling with their position in a world where AI could dominate how users find and pay for information.
Publishers are concerned about the impact on web traffic, whether they will be credited as the source of information in the AI-generated summaries, and the accuracy of these summaries. Additionally, publishers want to be compensated for their content that is used to train AI tools. While Google says it is working to send valuable traffic to publishers and is open to understanding the business model of generative AI, publishers remain cautious about the future of their industry. Furthermore, the design of SGE has the potential to reduce traffic to traditional search links by 40%, which could affect publishers' ability to secure advertisers. There is also concern that users may not click on links if the AI-generated summary satisfies their need for information.
Despite these challenges, Google maintains that SGE is designed to highlight web content and that it is an opt-in experiment to gather feedback from users and publishers. Publishers, however, feel that they lack information on how to ensure their content appears in SGE and are unsure how the algorithm behind it works. They worry that Google is crawling their content for free to create summaries that could potentially replace their links.
While publishers have allowed Google to crawl their content for traditional search results, they are now grappling with the implications of allowing their content to be used for AI-generated summaries. Some websites have already started blocking their content from being used by AI, although the process is still not clear for publishers. The introduction of SGE has intensified publishers' concerns about the future of their business.
In conclusion, the rise of AI and its application in generating content summaries has presented fresh challenges for publishers. As they navigate this changing landscape, publishers want to ensure fair compensation, maintain web traffic, and understand how to participate in AI-generated summaries. The future of the industry hangs in the balance as publishers and tech giants negotiate the role of AI in information consumption.
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