Google is facing backlash over its AI Overviews in search results, which new studies say cut news site clickthroughs by up to 80%.
The AI summaries show a text block that answers user queries directly, often without requiring clicks. This pushes actual links down the page, starving publishers of traffic.
Authoritas found sites that ranked first could lose about 79% of their visits for queries with AI Overviews. YouTube links gained prominence, raising conflict of interest concerns since Alphabet owns both Google and YouTube. 
The research is part of a legal complaint to the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) by Foxglove, the Independent Publishers Alliance, and the Movement for an Open Web.
Google rejected the claims, calling the studies “inaccurate and based on flawed assumptions,” saying AI features boost user engagement and new discovery opportunities.
A Pew Research Center survey tracked nearly 69,000 Google searches and found users clicked links under AI summaries only once every 100 queries. Google dismissed that study too, citing flawed methodology.
UK publishers report already seeing hits. MailOnline exec Carly Steven said clickthroughs dropped 56.1% on desktop and 48.2% on mobile for searches with AI summaries.
News Media Association CEO Owen Meredith accused Google of trapping users in a “walled garden” and monetizing others’ content.
Owen Meredith, chief executive of the News Media Association, said:
“The situation as it stands is entirely unsustainable and will ultimately result in the death of quality information online.
The Competition and Markets Authority has the toolkit to tackle these issues. It must do so urgently.”
Foxglove director Rosa Curling warned of a “devastating impact” on UK independent news.
Rosa Curling, director of Foxglove, said:
“It would be bad enough if Google were simply stealing journalists’ work and passing it off as their own.
But worse still, they are using this work to fuel their own tools and profits, while making it harder for media outlets to reach the readers they rely on to sustain their work.”
Publishers say Google has refused to share data needed to assess the full damage. The CMA now has a mounting case to investigate the squeeze on news traffic from AI Overviews.
