Google is testing AI-powered article overviews on participating publications’ Google News pages as part of a new pilot program. The company announced the initiative on Wednesday.
News publishers involved in this pilot include Der Spiegel, El País, Folha, Infobae, Kompas, The Guardian, The Times of India, The Washington Examiner, and The Washington Post, among others.
Google stated the purpose of this commercial partnership program is to explore how artificial intelligence can drive more engaged audiences. The company will work directly with publishers to experiment with new features within Google News.
By implementing these AI-powered overviews, Google aims to provide users with more context about an article before they click to read it. While these AI-generated summaries may lead to fewer clicks on the actual news articles, the participating publications will receive direct payments from Google. This financial arrangement could offset the potential decrease in traffic to their websites.
The AI article overviews will appear exclusively on the Google News pages of the participating publishers. They will not be shown elsewhere on Google News or in general Search results.
This is not Google’s first introduction of AI summaries for news. In July, the company rolled out AI summaries in Discover, the main news feed inside Google’s search app. That change replaced a single headline from a major publication with a display showing the logos of multiple news publishers alongside an AI-generated summary that cites those sources.
As part of the same pilot program, Google is also experimenting with audio briefings for users who prefer listening to news rather than reading it.
The company says these new AI features will include clear attribution and a link to the full articles. Additionally, Google is partnering with organizations like Estadão, Antara, Yonhap, and The Associated Press to incorporate real-time information and enhance results within the Gemini app.
Google wrote that as the way people consume information evolves, it will continue to improve its products and engage with feedback from stakeholders. The company emphasized it is doing this work in collaboration with websites and creators of all sizes.
In the same announcement, Google said it is launching its “Preferred Sources” feature globally. This feature, first launched in the U.S. and India in August, allows users to select their favorite news sites and blogs to appear in the Top Stories section of search results. It will be available to English-language users worldwide in the coming days, with a rollout for all supported languages planned for early next year.
Google will also begin highlighting links from a user’s news subscriptions, showing them in a dedicated carousel in the Gemini app in the coming weeks. AI Overviews and AI Mode integrations for these subscriptions will follow.
While these features make it easier for users to access news from their preferred sources, they also risk confining users to an ideological bubble by limiting exposure to different perspectives.
Finally, Google announced it is increasing the number of inline links within its AI Mode. It is also introducing “contextual introductions” for embedded links, which are brief explanations of why a particular link might be useful to explore.