Google Gemini
Google is the latest AI tech giant to announce a number of cash deals with leading publishers.
Unlike other AI deals with publishers (done by companies including OpenAI and Microsoft ) these arrangements don’t talk about licensing.
Instead they are described as building on existing commercial partnerships with publishers, which currently mainly fall under the Google News Showcase scheme. This is the programme launched in 2020 which saw Google distribute at least $1bn to news publishers around the world (notionally in exchange for visibility on Google News, but widely seen as a goodwill/lobbying measure).
Google says it pays publishers for “extended display rights and content delivery methods like APIs”.
It said in a press statement: “We’re now piloting a new commercial partnership program with a range of news publishers globally — including Der Spiegel, El País, Folha, Infobae, Kompas, The Guardian, The Times of India, The Washington Examiner and The Washington Post, among others — to explore how AI can help drive more engaged audiences.
“As part of this new AI pilot program, we’re working with publishers to experiment with new features in Google News. For example, we’re testing AI-powered article overviews on participating publications’ Google News pages to give people more context before they click through. And we’re experimenting with audio briefings for those who prefer listening. These features will include clear attribution and link to articles.
“We’re also partnering with organisations like Estadão, Antara, Yonhap and The Associated Press to include real-time information to enhance results in the Gemini app.”
Google makes at least £20bn a year in the UK alone from online advertising (around ten times more than the entire advertising take from every professional online publisher combined).
Over the last year many publishers have complained of sharply falling traffic due to the rise in zero-click searches , where Google extracts answers from news articles and serves them directly to readers using AI .
The search giant is now facing a monopoly investigation from the EU over the fact that it will not allow publishers to block its AI crawlers without them losing visibility on search.
On Wednesday, 10 December, it also announced a series of new features which it said “will help connect people with the sources they value”.
Preferred Sources
Preferred Sources is a new feature in search which allows users to customise the “Top Stories” they see in search prioritise favourite outlets and sites. This is now being rolled out globally.
Google said: “When someone picks a preferred source, they click to that site twice as much on average”
Subscriptions
A new feature highlights links to sites which users subscribe to “making it easier to spot content frfom sources you trust and helping you get more value from your subscriptions”.
Google said it will also now prioritise links from subscribed publications in search as well as the Gemini App, AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Links in AI Mode
Google said it is increasing the number of links to publishers in AI Mode and “updating the design of those links to make them more useful”.
It said: “We’re also adding contextual introductions to embedded links in AI Mode responses. These are short statements that explain why a link might be helpful to visit.”
Web Guide
Google said it has also updated “ Web Guide ” an experimental search feature made available to some Google users fvia Google Labs. It uses AI to organise links and surface websites users may otherwise have missed.
Google said: It’s especially useful for more complex, open-ended searches. We’ve updated Web Guide to make it twice as fast, and we’re showing it on more searches in the “All” tab on Search for people opted into the experiment.
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