Google Defends AI Summaries Amid Lawsuit, Vows to Balance Search Ecosystem
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Google says users prefer AI summaries in search results but insists it will maintain a healthy ecosystem alongside traditional links.
At an AI summit in New York, Google defended its controversial AI Overviews, even as lawsuits challenge their impact on online publishing.
Responding to a lawsuit filed by Rolling Stone’s parent company, Penske Media Corporation, Google’s Vice President of Government Affairs and Public Policy, Markham Erickson, argued that user preferences are changing. According to him, people are moving away from simply seeking “factual answers” on original websites and increasingly turning to contextual AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of search results.
Erickson stressed that Google aims to sustain a “healthy ecosystem” by balancing both AI summaries and traditional search results, often referred to as the classic “10 blue links.”
However, critics say AI Overviews hurt publishers. Evidence suggests traffic to websites drops significantly when AI summaries dominate search pages. Penske Media claims this decline in search visibility directly impacts advertising revenue, sparking concerns across the media industry.
Google, meanwhile, insists AI summaries are about meeting user expectations while keeping the web sustainable for all stakeholders.
Please find Mr Erickson opinion about the lawsuit:
So, I don’t want to speak about the specifics of the lawsuit, but I can speak to our philosophy here, which is, look, we want a healthy ecosystem. The 10 blue links serve the ecosystem very well, and it was a simple value proposition. We provided links that directed users free of charge to billions of publications around the world. We’re not going to abandon that model. We think that there’s use for that model. It’s still an important part of the ecosystem.
But user preferences, and what users want, is also changing. So, instead of factual answers and 10 blue links, they’re increasingly wanting contextual answers and summaries. We want to be able to provide that, too, while at the same time, driving people back to content, valuable content, on the Internet. Where that valuable content is for users, is shifting. And so it’s a dynamic space. Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that we have an overall healthy ecosystem.
