Artificial intelligence technologies such as Chatgpt and the Panoramic Ai of Google (or To the ovserviews What do you want) are revolutionizing the way we access the internet information. If until recently most of us relied on the classic blue link in the search results to find the answers to your questions, today we are increasingly used to receiving information directly in the form of automatic synthesis generated by the AI, without having to visit any site. This change has profound effects not only on user experience, but also On the online media economy that have made their core business “clicks”: Traffic to original news and content sites is decreasing significantly, undermining models of consolidated economic for multiple publishers. At the same time, however, research increases, become more complex, specific and conversational, with the Google algorithm that fishing also contained by pages that were previously invisible to most. Here in a scenario, new and complex like this, editorial companies and startups are looking for new solutions to monetize and adapt to an increasingly dominated network by responses generated by AI.
The impact of the AI on visits and earnings of websites
From May 2024with the introduction of To the ovserviews From Google, the interaction with search engines has changed radically. According to the analysis of the company Brightedgethe Research impression – i.e. the number of times that a result is shown to users – are increased by 49%. This indicates that people ask more questions, on an increasingly vast range of topics, presumably invited by the possibility of receiving increasingly rich and detailed answers directly in the results.
However, a proportional increase of the Ctr (Click-Through Rate), or the click on the links, is collapsed by almost 30% (from May 2024 to May 2025). This is because many users stop at the synthetic response generated by AI and no longer feel the need to click on a link to deepen their request by visiting a website, with immediate and impactful effects on the traffic of online publishers.
Let’s take the New York Times. According to a report drawn up by Similarweb (cited by Wall Street Journal) The traffic from human users passed since 44% (April 2022) al 36.5% (April 2025). A decline of almost eight percentage points, which represents a serious problem for such an important player of online publishing. According to Google, the scenario would not be as catastrophic as it seems, given that according to him the users spend more time on the pages they visit through the in -depth links provided by the Ovserviews. Too bad, however, that under discussion is not so much the time of stay on a site, but how often users decide to deepen the panoramas generated by the AI. Frequency that, given in hand, has dropped significantly.
To “buffer” the situation, Google has made public in recent days Offerwalla tool available for free on Google ad managerthrough which Publishers can offer readers several methods to access contentsuch as micropaggamenti, surveys, vision of announcements, newsletter inscriptions and more. Google uses artificial intelligence to determine the best time to show offerwalls to visitors, but publishers still have the opportunity to set personalized thresholds and, thanks to the collaboration with Superbreaders can pay for temporary access to content (for example for 24 hours or a week), or sign a subscription. Many of the proposed models, such as micropagments, have not been successful in the past due to economic and usability problems, but Google hopes that native integration with ad manager makes the experience more fluid and sustainable. Although the company has not shared complete details on the test results, it reported that, during a period of experimentation that lasted over a year with 1,000 publishersaverage revenues have increased by 9%. But if offerwall it will be a concrete solution to the problem of the “Mangia-traffici” problem, it is still early to say it.
The impact of AI on research habits
One thing is certain: AI deeply impacted on users’ search habits And, in particular, on the type of questions that they ask the search engines themselves. The query – or the words we type in the search bar – have become longer and more articulated. Those with more than eight words increased by 7%and more and more often generate an overview of the. Where first we simply wrote “Solar panels efficiency“, Today we ask”How to optimize the efficiency of solar panels in cloudy climates“, Receiving a complete and contextualized response, without having to” jump “from one link to another. For the user this can be a relative advantage (and now we will get to why we are talking about relative advantage), but for publishers it is certainly a loss of traffic and advertising revenues. This type of research, called conversationalreflects the expectations created by tools such as the Ovserviews and ChatgPTs, which respond with articulated phrases and with a natural and accommodating tone. If on the one hand it makes the search easier for the user, it must be considered the fact that the summaries generated by the AI may contain errors. And if the user does not deepen the “ready pappa” provided by artificial intelligence, he may not notice it at all.
The language used in online research is also changing: more and more users use Technical and specialist termsa sign that detailed and advanced level answers are expected. The volume of queries containing sectoral vocabulary – for example in areas such as finance, health and technology – has grown up 48.3% compared to the previous year. It is a clear sign that the public trusted to the also for complex explanations, which were once relegated to niche forums or specialist publications.
AI is rewriting the online publishing market
Another side effect of AI on online publishing concerns the transformation of the way Google selects information sources. In the past, the top ten positions in organic results monopolized attention and traffic. Now, however, the Ovserviews cite more often content from pages that are found far beyond the first page. After a Algorithm update in March 2025the quotes from results positioned between the 21st and 30 ° place have increased 400%and those between the 31st and 100 ° place of the 200%. It means that even less visible content can gain space thanks to the AI, if considered relevant.
This dynamic, if we think about it, has paradoxical effects. On the one hand, access to information sources is democratized: not only the editorial giants, but also small well -documented sites can be mentioned. On the other, however, if users no longer click on the links, the economic value of visibility decreases. For this reason, many newspapers are trying to make agreements with AI companies to protect their contents. The New York TimesFor example, he licensed his articles to Amazon for training his AI platforms. Other important publishers, such as The Atlantic And The Washington Postthey decided to collaborate with Openai, while Perplexity It offers a model that provides for the sharing of advertising revenues with publishers whose content are used by the chatbot.
EU publishers report Google
Given the impact that to the OVERSEW (and, more generally, artificial intelligence) is having online content market, A group of independent publishers denounced Google to the European Commissionaccusing her of abusing its dominant position in online research. The complaint concerns precisely the summary generated through AI that Google shows at the top of the search results. According to the proponents of the complaint, these contents use the material of the publishers without the possibility of renunciation, penalizing the original content. The signatories, including theIndependent Publishers Alliance, FoxGLove Legal Community Interest Company and the Movement for an open webask for a provisional measure from theAntitrust to avoid irreparable damage to competition and guarantee access to independent news. Google defended themselves from the accusations by saying that the sites still receive billions of clicks and that the new features to the expansion the opportunities for discovery. A similar complaint has also been sent to the British authority for competition, and similar cases also emerged in the United States.
The priorities of AI: Salvatore Aranzulla’s comment
From this examination it is therefore clear how complicated the online publishing situation has been complicated. We took advantage of this theme to ask Salvatore Aranzullaone of the best known computer disseminates in Italy, what he thinks of all this matter. Here is his comment:
These systems provide the response to the user and recover it from editorial websites, such as Geopop, such as Aranzulla.it, which are now mentioned (in the summaries based on the AI). Obviously, providing (directly) an answer the user no longer arrives within the site and, therefore, the sites that live in advertising end up losing traffic, they end up losing earnings. The real point is to understand long -term sustainability. In the sense that, if on a site no more traffic arrives and does not earn through advertising, (we publishers) we have less incentives to produce quality and updated content. If the publishers from whom these artificial intelligences draw information no longer produce quality information, the information that (the AI) will return to the user will be incomplete and partial.
I see it badly, in the sense that currently all these artificial intelligences are focusing on the part of the user ignoring all those other people – the publishers – who publish information. The risk is that (AI) end up losing quality and therefore cannot satisfy the needs of the long -term user.
The reasoning of Aranzulla is clear: if the publishers, in the not too distant future, should decide not to publish more content (because without advertising revenues it would no longer be economically sustainable), how will the various systems on duty to provide quality summaries to those who will look for information online? It is clear that something must be changed to prevent the “toy” breaks.
