Content conundrum
Google’s early attempt to pay websites for AI answers is struggling
Many sites see just one-tenth of one percent of their advertising revenue from AI payments.
Credit:
Aurich Lawson
Credit:
Aurich Lawson
Google’s shift to AI-powered search has upended the way the world’s largest search engine generates web traffic, rankling large and small publishers alike. In recent months, the company has experimented with paying publishers when their content appears in AI answers, but a new report claims the payouts in this pilot program are miniscule. That has publishers in the program, as well as those watching from the sidelines, feeling skeptical.
According to The Information, Google has admitted about 100 publishers to the AI contribution pilot. The pitch is that websites can get payments from Google when their content materially contributes to Gemini-powered search results like an AI Overview. Google has long resisted the idea of direct payments to publishers, arguing that websites get traffic in exchange for allowing Google bots to scrape their content for use in search and knowledge graph tools. In the age of AI, that relationship is breaking down, hence the AI pilot.
So far, publishers aren’t getting much for their trouble. The Information heard from several small and mid-sized publishers in the program that Google’s AI payments are minuscule, equaling roughly one-tenth of one percent of their advertising revenue. These payments have been so disappointing that several larger publishers have reportedly declined to participate in the program. These publishers hope that by refusing to join the pilot, they can force Google to offer a more generous deal.
Payments under the program vary widely, but some sites are doing well. One publisher that joined early is on track to earn more than $1 million per year, a big chunk of its revenue. A more recent addition to the pilot has earned $50,000 to $60,000, which is a small slice of its earnings. Various smaller sites are seeing less than $1,000 from the program over several months, which won’t come close to offsetting declining traffic.
In general, publishers in the test seem to agree that certain topics that are not as widely covered but have strong niche interest earn more, including anime and gaming. However, publishers also say that tracking the payments from month to month in the search console is often confusing. It’s not clear what counts as a meaningful contribution to an AI answer, so it’s impossible to plan for future earnings.
A shifting landscape
Google has noted over the years that its goal is to organize the world’s information, but that only works if there’s information online to organize. Frontier AI models are trained on data from around the web, letting them answer many questions within the knowledge cutoff. But in a search context, those answers often need the backing of live web content. If websites stop publishing or start blocking Google, AI search quality will decline.
The AI contribution pilot is a step toward forging a new relationship between Google and the publishers it relies on. However, the small payments and unclear nature of AI contributions could make expanding the program difficult. In the meantime, ill will is growing.
Some publishers have already started fighting back against Google’s shift toward AI search. The New York Times has an ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit against the company, alleging that Google (and other AI firms) illegally used its content to train AI models. Penske Media, which operates sites like Variety and Rolling Stone, has sued Google over lost traffic. It says the company’s decision to tie AI scraping to standard web indexing is unfair. With no dedicated option to opt out, sites that want to appear in Google’s organic search results also have to be part of AI search.
Regulators are starting to take notice, too. Earlier this year, the UK government ordered Google to provide an AI opt-out for publishers that would not penalize them in organic search results. The European Commission is also running an antitrust probe to determine if Google is fairly compensating publishers for using their content in AI answers. Given the company’s recent track record in the EU, it seems unlikely that it will work out in Google’s favor.
