News publishers are experiencing dramatic traffic declines as Google’s artificial intelligence features replace traditional search results. Major outlets report losing more than half their search-driven visitors over the past three years.
Isabella Simonetti and Katherine Blunt report in The Wall Street Journal that Google’s AI Overviews and new AI Mode are fundamentally changing how users find information online.
HuffPost and Washington Post both saw organic search traffic drop by approximately 50 percent since 2022. Business Insider cut 21 percent of its workforce last month after experiencing a 55 percent decline in search traffic, according to data from Similarweb.
“Google is shifting from being a search engine to an answer engine,” Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson told the Journal. He warned his company to assume Google traffic would drop toward zero.
Google’s AI Overviews provide summary answers at the top of search pages, reducing clicks to external websites. The newer AI Mode offers chatbot-style conversations with fewer links to news sites.
Washington Post CEO William Lewis called the trend “a serious threat to journalism that should not be underestimated.” His company is pursuing new revenue sources for a “post-search era.”
Publishers are adapting by building direct reader relationships through newsletters, events, and improved apps. Some are pursuing legal action over AI training data while simultaneously signing licensing deals with AI companies.
Google maintains it remains committed to sending traffic to websites, though the search giant faces growing competition from other AI chatbots.