Google to Give News Articles and Website Links Greater Visibility in AI Search
Google is introducing changes to its artificial intelligence-powered search features to make website links and news articles more visible, responding to concerns from publishers and businesses about declining referral traffic.
The company, owned by Alphabet, announced on Thursday that links would appear more frequently and in more prominent positions within AI-generated search results. The update is intended to help users discover original sources and access additional information beyond AI-generated summaries.
Google has gradually expanded artificial intelligence across its search services. It introduced AI Overviews in May 2024, providing summarised answers to users’ queries, and launched AI Mode in March 2025 to offer more detailed responses alongside links to relevant websites.
Under the latest changes, Google plans to expand the availability of its link carousel worldwide. The feature displays cards containing headlines and images from relevant articles beneath AI Overviews.
Search results will also give greater consideration to sources users have marked as preferred. Google’s AI-powered features will be able to include relevant material from social media posts and online discussion forums, while links placed at the end of AI-generated answers will receive improved visibility.
The changes come as news publishers raise concerns that AI-generated summaries are reducing the number of people who click through to original articles.
According to figures cited in the report, Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai said in the second quarter of 2025 that AI Overviews had more than two billion monthly users across over 200 countries.
A report by consultancy Chartbeat indicated that traffic directed to news websites from Google fell by 40 per cent between July 2025 and July 2026.
In France, the association representing daily newspaper publishers, Apig, raised concerns with the Competition Authority in August, arguing that AI-generated summaries conflicted with agreements reached with news publishers in 2022.
Google’s latest measures could help improve the visibility of original reporting within AI-powered search results. However, their impact on website traffic will depend on whether users increasingly choose to open the linked articles after reading AI-generated responses.
