Google’s AI Search Is Gutting News Traffic, and Publishers Are Sounding the Alarm

A growing number of American news outlets are seeing their web traffic plummet — and they’re blaming it on Google’s AI Overviews. Some are calling it an extinction-level event.

Visits to 37 of the top 50 news domains in the U.S. have dropped since Google introduced its generative AI summaries last May, according to fresh data from SimilarWeb. That’s over a year of steady erosion, hitting some outlets with losses as high as 40% in year-over-year traffic.

What’s worse? It’s happening even during one of the most politically dramatic stretches in recent memory — with Trump’s assassination attempt, the 2024 election, and tariff chaos under his return to office.

Publishers Are Getting Squeezed From the Top of the Funnel

This isn’t just about pageviews. It’s about how the internet works — or used to work.

For years, news sites have relied heavily on search traffic. Google Search would rank timely stories prominently. People clicked, visited the site, scrolled past some ads, maybe subscribed. Revenue followed.

Now, that pipeline is drying up.

With AI Overviews, users are often greeted by a chatbot-style summary at the top of the results page. These AI-generated blurbs often scrape facts from multiple sources and stitch them together. The original articles still get linked — but lower, much lower.

“Users get the information they need from the summary and rarely click through,” said a senior editor at a large digital publication who asked not to be named. “That’s killing our top-line metrics.”

Numbers That Hurt Just to Look At

Danielle Coffey, who heads the News/Media Alliance — a nonprofit representing over 2,200 news publishers — was blunt in her assessment.

“The data absolutely shows the new AI products Google has announced are affecting news publishers’ traffic,” she told The Post.

Her team pulled together data from SimilarWeb, and the drops are shocking:

• CNN: down 22%

• NBC News: down 30%

• Vox: down 27%

• BuzzFeed News: down 41%

• Politico: down 18%

And those are just the major players. The long tail of local news sites and specialty outlets is suffering in near silence.

One publisher with a mid-size state-based operation said bluntly: “We were seeing 8 million monthly visits last year. We’re barely at 4.5 million now. And our newsroom budget hasn’t changed.”

Even Big News Can’t Save the Clicks

You’d think high-stakes headlines would push traffic up. After all, last year was chaos on steroids.

Trump’s near-death escape in July. His shock win over Kamala Harris in November. The national debate over tariffs, border control, and digital censorship. These should’ve been surefire gold for political publishers.

But the clicks didn’t show up like they used to.

“Search surges are muted now,” said a traffic analyst at a national news chain. “The AI Overview just sits there at the top, like a giant sponge soaking up all the reader intent before it reaches us.”

One-click answers might be convenient for users. But they’re bleeding publishers dry.

Publishers Are Tweaking Everything Just to Survive

Media teams are in reaction mode, testing strategies that could keep them visible — and clickable — in a Google-AI-first world.

Some of the tactics include:

• Rewriting headlines to surface in AI prompts

• Publishing more explainers and Q&A format content

• Inserting proprietary reporting nuggets AI can’t easily summarize

• Creating short-form and newsletter content to bypass Google entirely

One site even went so far as to redesign its article structure to make key insights unparseable by AI.

“We’re putting our scoops in sidebars, or behind clicks, or using multimedia more,” said a managing editor at a national politics outlet. “If Gemini can’t read it, maybe we keep our traffic.”

The Bleeding Is Visible Across the Industry

Let’s look at the hard numbers. SimilarWeb’s latest comparison of top U.S. news sites, before and after the launch of AI Overviews, paints a grim picture:

Some of these publishers have diversified their income streams, but many — especially local and mid-tier players — still depend heavily on organic search.

Google Says It’s Helping, Not Hurting

In May, Google began featuring “AI Mode” prominently on its homepage, using a custom doodle to drive awareness of its Gemini-powered chatbot.

The company says the tool is meant to simplify search, offering users faster, clearer answers to complex queries. And to be fair, it does include citations.

But for publishers, the link is buried — and the click-through rate is falling.

A Google spokesperson brushed off the homepage promotion as “just a fun promo,” not a replacement for actual news discovery. But it’s not landing that way inside newsrooms.

One digital director described it this way: “Google built the internet highway, invited us to set up gas stations, and now just installed electric charging ports that bypass us entirely.”

It’s a New Search World, and Not Everyone Will Survive It

The industry is calling for transparency — and money.

Some publisher alliances are pushing for legislation to make platforms pay for content used to train or display generative AI. Australia passed such a law in 2021. Canada followed in 2023. The U.S. isn’t there yet.

In the meantime, layoffs have returned.

Two major digital outlets have cut teams by 10% in the past month. A prominent DC-based investigative newsroom is freezing hiring through 2026. Editors are quietly telling reporters: fewer rewrites, more exclusives.