Google Experimental Pilot Pays Publishers For AI Overviews Content
With the introduction of AI-powered summaries, AI Overviews has drastically reduced the amount of search traffic to websites, prompting complaints from publishers about losing traffic.
Google is exploring giving publishers a new revenue stream. The company is running a pilot program, paying roughly 100 publishers for content based on how much it contributes to AI-powered answers and other products.
The company hinted at the move when Markham Erikson, vice president of government affairs and public policy at Google, wrote in a June blog post the company is “exploring new types of partnership and value-exchange models that can further improve our products and deepen our relationships across the ecosystem.”
Related Knowledge Center: State of the business model
The traditional journalism business model has long since collapsed, and news organizations have shrunk or disappeared entirely. While a number of promising experiments are under way, the public has not shown a willingness to buy what news organizations are selling.