What Google’s new AI Overviews means for Raptive creators and publishers

Today, Google announced that AI Overviews (formerly Search Generative Experience) is rolling out to all US-based users this week. While it will take time to roll out and understand the full impact it will have on creators, we are very concerned about what we saw unveiled at Google I/O and for the future of content creation on the internet at large.

What is AI Overviews and how does it impact creators? 

On the surface, AI Overviews is a quick, easy way to find information, but the reality is that it could deliver a devastating blow to creators. Artificial Intelligence is now front and center, pushing links to creator content—the sources of its information—further down the page, when it appears at all. 

Google claims that they can now do the searching, researching, planning, and brainstorming for you by generating AI content summaries, using multistep reasoning, and more. This is ostensibly good for users, but what about creators?

Rather than prioritize content from trusted, human creators, the search results are composed of AI-generated summaries, along with follow-up questions readers can click to go to yet another AI-generated summary. 

Readers can now enter a query, scan the summary and content clusters, then move on without ever visiting the websites of the people who created the content in the first place, which means you’re not being recognized or compensated for your work. In fact, AI Overviews is essentially using your work to compete with you.

As our CEO Michael Sanchez told the Washington Post, this change could deliver tremendous damage to the internet as we know it, hurting search traffic for creators and threatening your long-term livelihoods. 

We’re pushing Google to consider creators

We’ve been collecting data since Google started piloting AI Overview as SGE, and the initial results were sobering. Our internal data analysis showed that SGE in its original form was likely to have a 66% impact on search traffic. 

The first iteration was not designed to support creators, and we went directly to Google with feedback. We continued to share our concerns, and we did see some initial improvements. 

AI Overviews (then known as SGE) became less likely to produce lengthy responses, leaving more room for links to your content. We also saw more prominent links appearing, and it was less likely to generate a response around food. 

However, the version of AI Overviews shown at I/O makes us question just how much Google is considering creators in its technology. Prior to the conference, our latest data indicated a 25% drop in search traffic, with the possibility that some creators would be hit worse, and others might fare better. 

We don’t know how the numbers will play out given what we see now, but you can be sure we’ll be tracking them closely. We’re hopeful that Google will continue to respond to our ongoing feedback and take steps to preserve creators’ search traffic.

What comes next

At Raptive, we’re known for our data. We were the first to report cookie deprecation results earlier this year, and you can expect the same as AI Overviews rolls out. We’ll be collecting data, identifying trends, and keeping creators updated on how AI Overviews is affecting search traffic. 

Search engines should implement an experience that rewards original, trusted content without degrading traffic to your websites. That’s not what we saw today, and we’ll continue to push back on the changes that don’t serve creators.  

This is all part of our ongoing AI advocacy for creators and independent publishers. We’re pushing tech companies towards choices that support the creator ecosystem. We’re amplifying our message in Washington, educating influential decision-makers so they won’t be able to ignore what’s going on. 

Recently, we have turned our attention to creator and publisher compensation. While we can’t make any promises at this stage, we have reached out to all of the major AI labs with the intent to pursue a compensation deal for our creators. We’re also looking at all possible legal options to protect creators’ intellectual property.

What creators can do right now

We want to represent you in these conversations, and the only way we can do that is if you’ve signed the Consent to Advocate for Responsible AI (CARA) agreement. This is an agreement giving us permission to advocate for your rights, and shows companies we’re able to negotiate on your behalf.  

If you haven’t already, add your signature to our AI open letter calling on tech companies to protect content creators’ rights and livelihoods. And spread the message! Anyone can sign this letter (friends, family, neighbors!), and the more signatures we have the more powerful the message becomes. 

If you haven’t watched our most recent webinar, Understanding AI’s Impact on the Creator Economy, now is a great time to do that. You’ll find the full details on our advocacy work, our five areas of focus, and more specific steps you can take to protect your business.  

For now, we are recommending that sites explicitly disallow AI crawlers in their robots.txt files. This sets a boundary and communicates that you intend to protect your rights. Here’s how you can prevent GPTbot from crawling your site, and you’ll find code for blocking additional AI scrapers here. We’re also working on automatically blocking these crawlers in the near future and will share more on that soon. 

We won’t sugarcoat it—AI Overviews poses a real threat to creators. It could change the way people search for content, and creators could see a serious hit to search traffic. But you are not in this on your own. Change like this can be scary, but it can also generate innovation. At Raptive, we’re pulling all of our levers to make sure creators aren’t left behind. We’ll continue sharing insights and actions you can take to make sure you’re doing everything you can to succeed. 

Creators who focus on authenticity and storytelling will be in the strongest position. AI may train on your content, but it can’t replace your experiences. You are the backbone of the internet; your work is what makes it an interesting, helpful, vibrant, and diverse space. You deserve recognition and compensation for what you do, and we’ll keep doing everything we can to make sure that happens.