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The media demands government action on Google’s AI development

With Google’s artificial intelligence pivot, the media is going crazy—and running for the government.

News/Media Alliance —a leading news-services trade group—wrote in a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It told companies to use antitrust rights to "stop Google's latest AI Overviews extension," a new search engine Google is just developing.

Interruption of the search condition

Google’s plain old top-page links disappear in many searches for news organizations or other news websites. Meanwhile, what Google calls AI Overviews has taken over most of this primary search engine's real estate.

The New York Times warns that the summary "provides complete answers without the user ever having to click on another page." And this worries websites that rely on Google AI to drive most of their traffic.

“It can squeeze original producers,” Frank Pine, managing editor of Media News Group and Tribune Publishing (owner of 68 dailies), told the Times.

It should be emphasized in terms of feasibility—it’s not yet clear how the changes will affect traffic. "We're constantly finding that people tend to search by clicking on links on AI overviews," Google's vice president of research, Liz Reid, told the Times. The website that appears in AI Overview actually gets more traffic" than the original link.

"Publishers have said in interviews that it's too soon to tell the difference in traffic from Google with the arrival of AI Overviews," the Times reported.

But they still want to punish Google in the past for daring to disrupt the news business model in a way news organizations don’t like (again).

Requirement for antitrust proceedings

In a May 28 letter, the News/Media Alliance asked the government to take action against Google’s use of Artificial intelligence. The coalition wants the industry to investigate what it calls Google's "monopolistic abuse of publishers' content" and use federal antitrust laws "to block Google's latest expansion of AI controls."

Conclusion

It’s not yet clear how the changes will affect traffic. "We continue to see that people tend to continue searching by clicking on links in AI Overviews.”