A group of independent publishers filed an anti-trust complaint with the European Commission against Google, claiming that the search summary generated by the company's AI, known as the AI overview, is harming traffic, readers and revenue.
The complaints filed by an alliance of independent publishers and seen by Reuters, call on publishers for interim measures to prevent what they call “irreparable harm.”
The Alliance is supported by digital ad groups and nonprofit organizations such as the Open Web and FoxGlove Legal CIC.
The AI overview is a summary that is automatically generated by Google's large language model and appears at the top of the search results in over 100 countries.
Google began monetizing these summaries with advertising in May 2025 as part of a broader drive to integrate artificial intelligence into core search engines.
AI is causing harm to publishers
The publisher said that AI overviews are harmful to the business and continue to lose revenue due to no clicks on content.
“Google's Core Search Engine Service misuses web content on an AI overview that has caused major harm to publishers, including news publishers. This includes loss of traffic, readers and revenue,” the complaint states.
- According to filing, there is no way for publishers to prevent content from training Google's AI models or appearing in AI overviews unless they completely opt out of training Google's AI models or AI overviews.
- AI Summary claims that this puts the original content at a disadvantage, as it concepts information generated from publisher material while lowering actual publisher links in search results.
- The Commission declined to comment on the issue, but the UK's Competitive Markets Agency (CMA) confirmed it had received the complaint.
Google response
In response, Google said it would drive billions of clicks to the website every day, claiming that AI in searches would expand its discoveries.
“The new AI experience in search allows people to ask more questions, which creates new opportunities for content and companies to be discovered,” a Google spokesperson said.
The tech giant also dismissed claims of traffic loss, saying that such claims are often based on “very incomplete and distorted data,” highlighting that fluctuations in website traffic can result from multiple factors, such as seasonality and changes in user interest and algorithm updates.
More insights
When AI is integrated through everyday search, it is expected that tensions will be strengthened between tech platforms and content providers, particularly over issues of content usage, visibility and fair compensation.
The independent publisher alliance calls for immediate regulatory intervention to ensure competition and protect public access to diverse sources.
