Can News Survive the Shift in Search?

Conventional search engines have been a major audience pipeline for news publishers in the digital age; however, with the rise of Generative AI search query engines, people are increasingly choosing to read AI-generated summaries instead of seeking information directly from the source. As the threat of eroding search traffic mounts, publishers are having to rethink their audience acquisition strategies.

How can publishers rise to this challenge and maintain relevance as AI search tools continue to proliferate? Let’s take a look.

The changing landscape of search traffic for news sites

In the International News Media Association (INMA)’s recent report on what the “end” of search means for news publishers, INMA makes the apocalyptic prediction that “Organic search traffic is expected to shrink to potentially near zero over the next two to three years.” INMA shares that, “Between May 2024 and February 2025, traditional search traffic dropped by more than 64 million referrals, while referrals from AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Perplexity increased by only 5.5 million — not nearly enough to offset the loss.” More concerningly, “nearly 59% of Google searches in the United States and just under 60% in the European Union now end without a click, as users choose to consume information directly in AI-generated summaries.”

Reuters’ 2025 Trends and Predictions report was slightly more positive, citing findings from analytics engine Chartbeat. That research showed “aggregate traffic to hundreds of news sites from Google search remains stable for now…” However, publishers are clearly concerned that “stability” won’t last. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of respondents surveyed by Reuters reported they were “worried about a potential decline in referral traffic from search engines this year” — especially given that referral traffic from major social networks has also dropped over the last two years (Facebook by 67% and Twitter/X by 50%).

The consequences of zero-click search

At the recent Sir Harry Summit, a panel of publicists from the BBC, CNN, and The Economist discussed the impacts of this “zero-click” search trend. Covering the event, Press Gazette reports that, “Numerous publishers have expressed a concern that AI-enabled search services like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews are diminishing their referral traffic because they answer user queries without them needing to click through to sources.”

These publishers’ fears are not unfounded. Though the AI summaries provided by search engines like Google currently include source links, INMA reports that “nearly 59% of Google searches in the United States ended without a click,” and in the European Union, “that number is just under 60%.”

Audience behavior is clearly changing, with more people now preferring the quick convenience of an AI-generated answer to the more time-consuming activity of extracting the information they need from the source. And according to Jodie Hopperton, Product & Tech Initiative Lead at INMA, this shouldn’t come as a surprise: “‘It’s not intuitive to type a few words into a box and get back a bunch of blue links. [...] What is intuitive? Asking a question and getting an answer.’”

How news publishers can navigate the shift in search

AI search is only going to get better, in turn inviting more users to adopt a zero-click attitude to search. So, how do news publishers stay afloat if search traffic is on the decline? Let’s take a closer look at a few emerging strategies:

• Explore new audience acquisition strategies — If traffic isn’t coming from search, publishers must find new and innovative ways of attracting an audience. INMA suggests diversifying with newsletters, audio platforms, partnerships, push, and enticing products (like The New York Times’ Games app).
• Find revenue streams other than ads — Reuters found that for 77% of publishers, “subscription and membership remain the biggest revenue focus.” Publishers are also pursuing “events (48%), affiliate revenue (29%), donations (19%), and related businesses (15%)” to diversify their revenue streams.
• Embrace proprietary journalism — INMA suggests prioritizing opinion pieces, analysis, and local news stories since this kind of proprietary journalism “gives audiences information that they can’t find from a bot.”
• Protect your content from AI — INMA advises publishers to go “on defence” when it comes to protecting their content from AI scraping. Blocking bots is an important first step, though this can be costly and time-consuming. Other strategies include keeping content behind a registration wall, delivering content directly via email or push notifications, and adopting “non-text content” like audio, video, and games.
• Work with AI to improve your offerings — Reuters reports that publishers are increasingly looking at ways for AI to improve operations and boost performance, including “features that turn text articles into audio (75%), provide AI summaries at the top of stories (70%), or translate news articles into different languages (65%).” More than half (56%) of publishers intend to fight back with “AI chatbots and search interfaces” of their own.
• Leverage AI revenue streams — 36% of Reuters’ commercial publishers “expect licensing income from tech and AI companies to be a significant revenue stream — twice as many as last year.” But commercial publishers aren’t the only ones in line for lucrative AI partnerships. Speaking to WAN-IFRA’s World News Media Congress, Tom Rubin, Chief of Intellectual Property and Content at OpenAI, vowed that “It is ‘incumbent’ on OpenAI to make sure smaller publishers get the same potential benefits from platforms like ChatGPT as large dominant names.” Only time will tell if that promise is kept.

Over the last year, it’s become clear that AI search isn’t a passing trend but an industry game-changer. It would be understandable for digital news publications to turn their backs on the technology siphoning their traffic, but incorporating AI into new audience acquisition strategies might just be the path through — and the publishers willing to explore how high-quality journalism can be enhanced by AI tools will likely be the trailblazers.