Google’s new AI search experience could significantly reduce traffic to publishers’ sites

Google has unveiled a significant overhaul of its search that will bake AI-generated responses directly into search results. Based on the demos showcased by Google, the new interface will result in “blue links” to third-party sites being displaced and pushed down the page to make way for a prominent box featuring AI-generated content instead.  If rolled out widely, the new “Search Generative Experience” could drastically reduce the volume of traffic Google sends to some publishers’ sites, as users would be provided with the majority of the information they need directly in search results pages without the need to click through. When SGE answers a question it does offer links to several of its sources in order to “corroborate” the copy it’s generated, but it remai