When Google unveiled AI Overviews in May 2023, critics warned it could spell the death of web traffic for publishers. A year later, it seems the patient is flatlining. Multiple independent studies have confirmed what many in the media feared: AI-generated answers, whether from Google or chatbots like ChatGPT, are cannibalising clicks and decimating traditional search-driven discovery.
However, Google now says the reports are wrong, claiming traffic remains “relatively stable,” click quality is rising, and the web is just evolving. But with 69 per cent of news-related searches now ending in zero clicks, publishers aren’t feeling the optimism.
AI-powered tools like Google’s AI Overviews and chatbots such as ChatGPT have proven to dramatically reduce the amount of traffic directed to news publishers, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
As users increasingly ask AI tools for answers, often summarised from publisher content without direct permission, they’re bypassing traditional search results. Google’s rollout of AI Overviews has already slashed clicks to travel, health, and review sites, and its conversational AI Mode could hit news publishers even harder by offering fewer external links and direct traffic paths.
For major outlets like The New York Times, the drop has been substantial; organic search traffic has fallen nearly 8 per cent over three years. Meanwhile, AI referrals from tools like ChatGPT have skyrocketed, growing 25-fold from under 1 million in early 2024 to more than 25 million in 2025.
Still, these gains are not enough to offset the broader decline: nearly 69 per cent of news-related searches on the web now result in no click-throughs, a sharp rise from 56 per cent a year earlier. Some publishers like Reuters, NY Post, and Business Insider are seeing notable growth in ChatGPT traffic, while The New York Times has only seen modest increases.
To respond, publishers are urgently exploring alternative revenue models. Some have licensed content to AI companies like Amazon and OpenAI, while others are experimenting with tools like Google’s Offerwall, which enables monetisation through micropayments and newsletter signups. Despite these efforts, job losses and site closures are mounting.
Even OpenAI’s Sam Altman acknowledged that the rise of AI may be economically beneficial in the long term. Still, for the media industry in particular, the short-term consequences are proving “extremely painful”.
Yet, despite mounting evidence, Google has reported that it “continues to send billions of clicks to the web every day” and is “committed to prioritising the web in our AI experiences in Search”.
In a blog post yesterday, Liz Reid, VP, head of Google Search at Google said: “Overall, total organic click volume from Google Search to websites has been relatively stable year-over-year”.
Not only that, but Reid argued that the “quality” of clicks is increasing, referring to users spending more time on clicked sites and not bouncing back to the search results immediately. “We’re actually sending slightly more quality clicks to websites than a year ago,” she wrote. “This data is in contrast to third-party reports that inaccurately suggest dramatic declines in aggregate traffic — often based on flawed methodologies, isolated examples, or traffic changes that occurred prior to the roll out of AI features in Search”.
According to Reid, AI Overviews are enabling people to ask longer and more complex questions and in doing so, are increasing search activity overall. With more searches, she argues, come more opportunities for websites to appear and get clicked.
“For some questions where people are looking for a quick answer, like “when is the next full moon,” people may be satisfied with the initial response and not click further. This has also been true for other answer features we’ve added, like the Knowledge Graph or sports scores. But for many other types of questions, people continue to click through, as they want to dig deeper into a topic, explore further or make a purchase. This is why we see click quality increasing, an AI response might provide the lay of the land, but people click to dive deeper and learn more, and when they do, these clicks are more valuable,” Reid wrote.
Reid also suggested that changes in traffic patterns may have less to do with Google and more to do with user preferences. “People are increasingly seeking out and clicking on sites with forums, videos, podcasts, and posts where they can hear authentic voices and first-hand perspectives,” she wrote. “Websites that meet these evolving user needs are benefiting from this shift and are generally seeing an increase in traffic.”
She stopped short of naming which sites those are.
Despite publishers’ growing concerns, Reid positioned Google as a steward of the open web. “As a search company, we care passionately, perhaps more than any other company, about the health of the web ecosystem,” she said. “We continue to send billions of clicks to websites every day and believe that Search’s value exchange with the web remains strong.”
She added that Google’s AI-generated answers include “prominent links, visible citation of sources, and in-line attribution” that help users learn where information is coming from. “Websites always have control over how content is highlighted or included in Search with open web protocols, which we respect and follow.”
With the web having existed for more than three decades, Read said that Google firmly believes it is “entering its most exciting era yet”.
“Technology shifts bring change, but they also bring extraordinary opportunity. We believe that AI will be one of the most expansionary moments for the web, empowering us all to ask vastly more questions and creators to reach more deeply engaged audiences. We’ll continue to help businesses, creators, and websites seize these opportunities as we build this future together”.
But for news publishers, that optimism feels disconnected from reality and Google’s reassurances about “quality clicks” ring hollow when the numbers say otherwise. If traditional search isn’t already on life support, publishers must be starting to wonder how long Google plans to keep the machine running.
