How Google profits even as its AI summaries reduce website ad link clicks

Opinion Alphabet, Google's parent company, is making money hand over fist. In its latest quarterly report, Google's revenue grew 14 percent year-over-year to $96.4 billion. While Google's cloud revenue, $13.6 billion, with 31 percent year-over-year growth, is growing fast, the bulk of its cash, $54.2 billion worth, still comes from advertising.

You see, Google's move to place AI-generated summaries, aka "AI Overviews," at the top of search results is wreaking havoc on websites. How bad is it? Bad.

According to a new Pew Research Center study of 900 US Google users, when they saw an AI Overview, they were very unlikely to click on the links to other websites. Only a mere 1 percent of them clicked on the link to the page Google was summarizing. 

But, wait, it gets worse! The 404 Media website reported that Google searchers did not arrive to an earlier story on the site about how Spotify is releasing AI-derived music from dead artists when they searched for it. It found the reason for this was that the AI Overview told readers about its contents without even linking to its story. Instead, what little link traffic there was went to AI-driven link aggregator sites. In short, "AI Overview just ensures people will never click the link where the information they are looking for originates."

Leave a Comment