Mountain View (GNP): Google announced on Thursday that it will display links to websites and articles more prominently, and higher up, in search results powered by artificial intelligence (AI). The move comes as brands and news publishers warn of a sharp decline in their traffic.
The change follows two years of deeper AI integration into search. In May 2024, Google launched AI Overviews, which generate summarised answers to queries instead of only showing links, as the company had done historically. In March 2025, it added AI Mode, which opens in a separate window and gives a more comprehensive answer with more links than AI Overviews.
Under the new approach, contextual links will appear more frequently and higher up in AI-generated search content. Google will also expand its link carousel worldwide. The carousel shows cards directly below AI Overviews, with headlines and images for relevant articles.
Personalisation will play a bigger role as well. The algorithm will prioritise articles from sites that a user has previously identified as preferred sources, and it will also be able to pull in content from relevant social media posts and other forums.
Links placed at the end of AI-generated summaries will become more engaging and prominent for users who want to dig deeper.
The scale of AI Overviews explains why publishers are watching closely. During Alphabet’s second-quarter 2025 results, chief executive Sundar Pichai said the feature had more than two billion monthly users in over 200 countries.
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That reach has come at a cost to the open web. Several studies have shown that replacing traditional search with AI summaries significantly reduces the rate at which users open the suggested links. According to consultancy Chartbeat, news website publishers saw a 40 per cent drop in traffic coming from Google between July 2025 and July 2026.
The dispute has already reached regulators. In August, Apig, a group representing daily newspapers in France, alerted the Competition Authority that AI summaries breached agreements reached with news publishers in 2022.
Sundar Pichai said, “AI Overviews had more than two billion monthly users.”
Managing Editor at Global News Pakistan (GNP), with a Bachelor's degree in International Relations from Riphah International University, graduated with a Gold Medal. Reach out at sabahtareengnp@gmail.com
