A study found AI Overviews can cut a top news link's traffic by 79%
The July 2025 research measured what happens to publishers when Google answers the question itself.
Kivorent News desk, published , 1 min read
79%traffic a top-ranked link can lose beneath an AI Overview
This is a look back at news from the week of . We wrote it on November 11, 2026, from the sources listed at the end.
A news site ranked first in Google's results can lose 79% of its traffic for that search when the link appears below an AI Overview, according to a study reported by The Guardian in July 2025 and summarized by AI Weekly.
AI Overviews are the AI-written summaries Google places above its search results.
Why it mattered
Publishers had argued that AI summaries would reduce visits. This study put a number on it.
The deal between search engines and websites has been simple: sites let Google read their pages, and Google sends readers back. If the answer appears on Google's own page, the reader has less reason to click.
The same tension applies to AI agents that read sites without visiting them the way a person does. In 2026, Wikimedia complained about exactly that.
Sources
- Issue #449: AI Action Plan, AI Weekly, July 24, 2025
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