Google’s new AI Overviews feature in Norway displays instant, AI-written summaries in search results, causing a sharp drop in traffic to local news sites. Some outlets report losses up to 34.5% in click-throughs, jeopardizing ad revenues and subscriptions. Editors from VG and Dagbladet warn this could accelerate a long-term decline that began with social media algorithm shifts.
Norwegian publishers are now exploring direct traffic strategies, stronger homepages, and blocking scrapers, while calling for fair compensation from tech giants. This reflects a global dilemma: how AI summarization may undermine traditional journalism’s business model.
