Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, believes that Google's latest changes will accelerate the move toward "Google Zero," meaning traffic from Google search will disappear completely for some news publishers.

These changes involve a fundamental overhaul of Google Search. Google's search engine will incorporate various features powered by Gemini, the tech company's artificial intelligence model.

The most obvious change is that when searching for information, Google Search will display AI-generated summaries at the top of the search page, followed by Google's traditional blue links.

For example, when asked where the best place to see the aurora borealis was, Google's AI-generated answer offered advice about the Arctic Circle as part of a longer paragraph of text.

Even though the link to the website appears below the AI-generated answers, some news publishers are concerned that there will be very few clicks on that link, since the AI ​​has provided the clearest answer to the user's question after pulling information from other news sites and information.

Google believes that their job is to help users get the information they need as quickly as possible, such as providing answers without having to click on a link.

In an interview, Google CEO Sundar Pichai emphasized that, according to Google's own research, many users click on links even when AI-generated summaries are available. He admitted that many times users are just looking for a quick answer summarized by AI, but that it will lead to growth for high-quality content.

Despite Google's assurances about the traffic to links under AI-generated results, technology research firm Gartner estimates that Google's overall search traffic will drop by 25% by 2026, while Raptive estimates that some websites could lose up to two-thirds of their traffic from Google, a loss equivalent to $2 billion for the organizations that own the websites.

Ngoc Anh (according to CJR)