The presence of the AI Overviews feature and other artificial intelligence (AI)-based tools from Google, including chatbots , has had an impact on the decline in the number of visits to news sites, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
As internet users can now simply ask chatbots directly to get answers, often generated from news content without the publisher’s knowledge, the need to click on search result links is drastically reduced.
This has led to a sharp decline in the number of visits to news sites, which have long been the backbone of quality journalism, as reported by Tech Crunch.
Google AI Overviews search result summary feature was launched last year. Since the feature was launched, visits to various sites, ranging from travel guides, health tips, to product reviews have reportedly decreased.
