Google AI Search tool, SGE, could be detrimental to news publishers; Know all about it

The new Google AI Search tool, known as Search Generative Experience (SGE), has been identified as a potential threat to publishers' traffic, with the tool providing full answers to user queries and eliminating the need for scrolling.

Google SGE could potentially kill news publishers’ traffic, according to a WSJ report. (Unsplash)

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been the buzzword of 2023, with developments taking place at the speed of light, seemingly. From AI chatbots to AI tools that can be used for various purposes including image generation, code interpretation, multi-modal search, and more, the incorporation of AI has been quite expeditious. However, it has not been all smooth sailing so far. Various debates have taken place about the ills of AI, with deepfakes rising at an alarming rate. As such, the need for its regulation is necessary. Thus, the passing of the EU AI Act could not have come at a better time. But it is not just deepfakes where AI is posing a danger. A new report has shed light on its implications in the news sector, with publishers saying that Google's new AI Search tool, Search Generative Experience, could potentially be at the forefront of the top traffic-destroying elements.

Google SGE hampering traffic

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the American magazine Atlantic put together a list of threats it faces courtesy of generative AI. And Google's new AI Search tool was found to be at the summit. For the unaware, Google Search Generative Experience (SGE) allows users to understand topics faster and uncover more insights. Users can ask long questions with several choices instead of having to break them up into smaller parts. It also brings the ability to get suggested steps and even ask follow-up questions.

As per the report, about 40 percent of Atlantic's traffic comes from web searches. It was found that in about 75 percent of the searches, Google SGE would provide the full answer to the user's query, therefore, eliminating the need for them to scroll further down. Thus, it would result in Atlantic missing out on the traffic that it would've acquired if not for SGE. WSJ further revealed that about 40 percent of the traffic obtained by publishers comes from searches and with social media platforms like Meta and X stating that they won't distribute news, the AI tech could potentially be a doom-bringer.

Mathias Dopfner, chairman and CEO of Axel Springer told WSJ, “AI and large language models have the potential to destroy journalism and media brands as we know them.”

In defense, Google's Vice President of Search told WSJ, “Any attempts to estimate the traffic impact of our SGE experiment are entirely speculative at this stage as we continue to rapidly evolve the user experience and design, including how links are displayed, and we closely monitor internal data from our tests.”

However, it is unlikely that Google will kill all the media traffic because it then won't have any data to train its AI models on.