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Google told the New York Times it will disable Google Search for school accounts that choose to ban AI features entirely, because the company has tied Search and its Gemini AI/AI Overviews products together. Google education VP Chris Phillips said students at such schools would instead see a message saying search is unavailable.
Searching Google for "Zelda" or "Ocarina of Time" now triggers an animation leading to a retro version of the search results page styled like 1998, complete with blue hyperlinks and the old "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, timed to Nintendo's Ocarina of Time remake launch. The effect only applies to game-related searches and reverts to Google's current results page, including AI Overviews, for anything else.
Reddit's stock dropped 29.22% on Friday, its steepest single-day fall since going public in 2024, after the company reported weaker-than-expected quarterly sales growth and issued a soft sales forecast. CEO Steve Huffman said search-referral traffic from Google declined 'meaningfully' this quarter due to AI Overviews, and the company is moving toward requiring logins for previously open access.
Google is rolling out ads inside AI Mode search results to 10 additional countries, including Australia, Canada and India, with Brazil, Mexico and the UK to follow later this year. In the US, the company is introducing 'multiturn ads' that can appear within follow-up conversational queries when Google detects commercial intent, alongside ads on initial AI Mode searches. The move follows comments from Google's Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler that search ad revenue growth slowed in Q3 2026 as queries shift to AI Overviews and AI Mode, which monetize at lower rates than traditional search.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said on the company's Q3 2026 earnings call that Google's AI Mode and AI Overviews no longer send meaningful traffic to Reddit or other websites. Reddit disclosed that weekly search referrals fell by more than 1 million on average in October, which Huffman linked partly to AI-driven search changes and to machine-translated content being ranked lower outside the US.
Google announced during Alphabet's Q3 earnings call that it is rolling out ads within AI Overviews and AI Mode to international markets, alongside new multi-turn ad formats in the U.S. Alphabet reported $127.6 billion in revenue, up 25% year over year, but Search ad growth slowed to 12% from 17% in Q2 and 19% in Q1, and Alphabet shares fell 8% after the results. Chief business officer Philipp Schindler said click-through rates on sponsored listings in AI Mode now match those of organic listings.
Google's 2024 rollout of AI Overviews, which places AI-generated summaries above traditional search links, has altered how readers interact with search results. Investigations by the Press Gazette found the feature appearing in roughly a quarter of news-related searches by May 2024, with effects on publisher traffic becoming evident by August. The News/Media Alliance had warned the change could severely hurt web traffic for news outlets.
A published guide explains a workaround that lets users turn off Google's AI Overviews feature, which automatically generates AI summaries atop search results. The method reportedly restores a more traditional search experience that prioritizes links to original web sources rather than AI-generated summaries.
Whitespark research cited in a new local-SEO analysis found AI Overviews appear on only 15% of traditional local-intent search queries, compared with 93% for Google's Local Pack results. The analysis argues that while AI has disrupted informational search, consumers searching for nearby service providers like roofers or lawyers still rely on Google Maps and Local Pack listings rather than AI-generated answers.
ESBO Ltd founder describes receiving a five-figure proposal based on a single screenshot showing a client's competitor named in an AI assistant's answer while the client was absent. Running the same query six times showed the client appearing three times and the competitor four, suggesting no brand consistently dominated the answer. The piece cites Ahrefs research tracking over 43,000 queries, finding AI Overview answers changed in 70% of cases within about two days, with cited sources overlapping only 54.5% between checks.
Google announced updates to its AI search features that place inline links higher and more frequently in responses, add link carousels for timely articles, and make end-of-query links more visually prominent with thumbnails. It's also testing clickable publisher profile links in AI Mode and says over 400 publishers now participate in its News AI licensing pilot, with Axios, CNN, and the Financial Times newly joining.
US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled in Google's favor in separate antitrust lawsuits filed by Chegg and Penske Media Corporation, which alleged AI Overviews cut their website traffic and revenue. Mehta found the publishers' claims rested on an unfulfilled 'expectation' of search traffic rather than any actual agreement with Google, and dismissed the suits.