A profound and potentially devastating shift is underway in the digital landscape, pitting the behemoth tech giant Google against the struggling news publishing industry. At the heart of this unfolding drama lies a fundamental truth: without human intelligence and input, artificial intelligence cannot exist.
Yet, as Google aggressively moves its search functionality towards an “answer engine” powered by AI, news publishers are experiencing a drastic reduction in traffic, revenue, and, consequently, the number of journalists they can employ.
This ripple effect threatens to shrink these organizations in both content generation and overall size, ultimately impacting the very foundation upon which Google’s AI models are trained.
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The tremors of this digital transformation are already being felt across newsrooms worldwide. Google, once seen as a benevolent shepherd directing internet users to news sites, is increasingly replacing traditional “blue links” with instant, comprehensive answers generated by its AI. This leaves publishers out in the cold, their content consumed but their websites unvisited.
Alarming data from Similarweb reveals the extent of the crisis. Over the past three years, major news outlets, including HuffPost, the Washington Post, and Business Insider, have witnessed their organic search traffic plummet by approximately 50%.
The impact is so severe that Business Insider recently laid off 21% of its staff, with CEO Barbara Peng directly attributing the cuts to “extreme traffic drops outside of our control.”
“Google is shifting from being a search engine to an answer engine,” lamented Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson, acknowledging the stark reality. “We have to develop new strategies.”
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This seismic shift accelerated in 2024 with the introduction of AI Overviews, which summarize search results directly at the top of the page. The subsequent rollout of AI Mode in May, a more interactive, chatbot-style version of Overview, presents an even greater threat by offering conversational answers with minimal, if any, links back to original sources.
Similarweb’s data paints a grim picture of this decline between April 2022 and April 2025:
- HuffPost: Organic search traffic to its desktop and mobile sites nosedived by nearly 50%.
- The Washington Post: Experienced a similar decline.
- Business Insider: Plunged a staggering 55% in organic search traffic.
The gravity of the situation isn’t lost on industry leaders. At a company meeting earlier this year, The Atlantic’s Nicholas Thompson chillingly projected Google traffic would “drop toward zero,” underscoring the urgent need for a radical evolution of their business model. William Lewis, publisher and CEO of the Washington Post, minced no words, calling it a “serious threat to journalism that should not be underestimated.”
The financial implications extend beyond publishers. Google itself stands to lose massive amounts of revenue from the ad revenue shares it previously garnered from these highly trafficked news sites.
As news organizations shrink in content generation and size due to reduced revenue, the very wellspring of high-quality, human-generated information that AI models rely upon for training is at risk of diminishing. This creates a perplexing conundrum for Google: its technological advancement is inadvertently undermining the content ecosystem that fuels its own AI.
In response, publishers are scrambling to forge new paths to their audiences, focusing intensely on direct engagement. The Atlantic is reportedly beefing up its app, expanding its print magazine, and pouring investments into events. Neil Vogel, CEO of Dotdash Meredith, revealed a dramatic shift: Google search’s share of their web traffic has dwindled from 60% at their 2021 merger to approximately one-third today, with overall traffic now growing through newsletters and specialized platforms.
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Simultaneously, media companies are navigating the complex legal landscape surrounding AI. The New York Times has filed copyright infringement lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft, while concurrently securing a licensing agreement with Amazon. News Corp, too, maintains a content agreement with OpenAI while pursuing litigation against Perplexity.
As Sherry Weiss, Chief Marketing Officer of Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, succinctly put it, the industry’s new mantra is clear: “As the referral ecosystem continues to evolve, we’re focused on ensuring customers come to us directly out of necessity.”
The era of relying on Google for traffic may be over; the battle for direct audience connection, and the future of human-powered journalism, has just begun.
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