Google is testing AI-powered article overviews on participating publications’ Google News pages as part of a new pilot program, the search giant announced on Wednesday.
News publishers participating in the pilot program include Der Spiegel, El País, Folha, Infobae, Kompas, The Guardian, The Times of India, The Washington Examiner, and The Washington Post, among others.
The purpose of the new commercial partnership program is to “explore how AI can drive more engaged audiences,” Google said in a blog post. As part of the new AI pilot program, the company will work with publishers to experiment with new features in Google News.
By adding AI-powered article overviews, Google says users will get more context before they click through to read an article. While AI-generated summaries may lead to fewer clicks on news articles, publications participating in the commercial pilot program will receive direct payments from Google, which could make up for the potential decrease in traffic to their sites.
The AI-powered article overviews will only appear on participating publications’ Google News pages, and not anywhere else on Google News or in Search.
This isn’t the first time that Google has introduced AI summaries for news. In July, the company rolled out AI summaries in Discover, the main news feed inside Google’s search app. With this change, users no longer see a single headline from a major publication in the feed. Instead, they see the logos of multiple news publishers in the top-left corner, followed by an AI-generated summary that cites those sources
Google is also experimenting with audio briefings for people who prefer listening to the news rather than reading it, as part of the new pilot program.
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The company says these features will include clear attribution and a link to articles.
Additionally, Google is partnering with organizations such as Estadão, Antara, Yonhap, and The Associated Press to incorporate real-time information and enhance results in the Gemini app.
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