Major U.S. media outlets and community platforms are reevaluating their relationship with Google. The decline in traffic from Google, particularly following the expansion of its AI summary features, is prompting publishers to consider cutting off their content supply. Organic Google search traffic from U.S. users to major media outlets saw significant drops between June 2025 and June 2026, with Business Insider falling over 85%, USA Today down about 50%, CNN down approximately 25%, and POLITICO decreasing by 23%.
Publishers are increasingly frustrated that Google's AI models scrape their content for training, and then present AI-generated answers that reduce clicks to external sites. This has led executives to question the business sense of continuing to provide content to Google. USA Today CEO Mike Reed stated that the company is willing to block Google crawlers entirely if traffic declines persist and is preparing for a future without Google traffic revenue, also pursuing an antitrust lawsuit against Google.
Several entities are taking action or considering it. Reddit, for example, is weighing whether to renew its $60 million-a-year deal with Google from 2024 for AI data. POLITICO is discussing a registration wall to block bots, and Reuters is considering blocking Google bots from its consumer news service. Cloudflare, a content delivery network, plans to set default bot management protocols to block multi-purpose crawlers on ad-supported webpages for new sign-ups and free-tier customers, primarily targeting Google's unified crawler for indexing and AI training. USA Today Inc. and Beehiiv are among those preparing to delist from Google Search or block its crawlers.
Google, in response, stated its AI search feature "sends billions of clicks to the web every week and helps publishers attract potential audiences" and clarified its plans to test an opt-out feature for AI summaries without affecting traditional search results, following a ruling by U.K. regulators. The company has also introduced "Google Extended," allowing publishers to opt out of AI training without disappearing from Search, though publishers remain wary of its effectiveness. Meanwhile, Time magazine is experimenting with embedding text-based ads in articles that are invisible to human readers but readable by AI crawlers, hoping to create a new revenue stream when chatbots surface these ads.
