Google is building an AI fence around the internet it once defended

[SAN FRANCISCO] When Google prepared to go public in 2004, its co-founder Larry Page wrote a letter to shareholders explaining the Internet company’s responsibility to the world.

“We believe that a well-functioning society requires abundant, free and fair access to high-quality information,” Page said.

Google fulfilled its responsibility by acting as a gateway to the Internet.

It answered people’s search queries with a list of hyperlinks, pushing users to the so-called “open web” – millions of websites run by retailers, publishers, universities, etc. – for more information.

Over the next few decades, Google became one of the richest and most powerful companies on the planet by directing people to the vast open web.

In the age of artificial intelligence, Google appears to be retreating from the open web, potentially putting it at risk.

Starting in 2025, the Silicon Valley giant used AI to revamp search.

The company introduced an AI mode that replaces hyperlink search results with conversational responses written by Gemini, the company’s AI chatbot.

Just recently, Google changed its iconic search box for the first time in 25 years, allowing users to add photos and videos to their queries and assign an AI “agent” to perform the search.

The effects of these moves are becoming clear, with people spending more time on Google than ever before.

Google said at its developer conference in May that users are creating queries that are three times longer than keyword-heavy questions in traditional search.

According to three studies by researchers, people spend 1 to 9 minutes more on AI mode than on traditional Google searches. new york times.

A study conducted in October by Growth Memo, a newsletter focused on search and marketing, found that users stuck in AI mode for the web in about 75% of sessions.

For publishers, businesses, banks, and others who relied on Google to attract billions of users to their websites, the impact as Google increasingly incorporates AI into search is undeniable.

They said Google users are no longer leaving Google after searching, only reading AI-generated answers, meaning fewer people are visiting websites and search traffic is declining.

Nilay Patel, Technology Websites Editor-in-Chief The Vergehas been warning publishers for years that they face “Google zero,” when traffic from Google plummets to zero.

“For publishers, Google Zero is already here,” he said. “It wasn’t until AI modes came out that people realized that slow creep was reaching a tipping point.”

This change threatens the open web and shows how quickly AI is upending the technological landscape.

Tim Berners-Lee, a computer scientist who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web in 1989, envisioned the Web as a tool for global collaboration without borders, where people could create their own websites and move freely between sites created by others.

Much of that vision has been whittled down over the years as tech giants like Apple and Meta have built “walled gardens,” technology ecosystems where users can get almost everything they need under one roof.

Now, AI is undoubtedly accelerating that trajectory, Berners-Lee wrote in a 2024 essay.

Tech companies have built empires focused on locking in users and maximizing profits rather than promoting the public good, writes Berners-Lee.

He added: “Rapid advances in AI are exacerbating these concerns, proving that problems on the web are not isolated but deeply intertwined with emerging technologies.”

Google denies it is endangering the open web.

Liz Reid, vice president of search, said in an August 2025 blog post that the company’s ethos remains the same and that it is generating “relatively stable” clicks in the billions.

She said reports of declines in search traffic were “inaccurate” and relied on “flawed methodology.”

“We care passionately about the health of the web ecosystem, probably more than any other company,” said Reed.

Since publishing that blog post, Google has added more AI to search.

We’ve also created several features aimed at steering users out of AI mode and into the broader web, including website previews for some answers and a tool that lets you set “preferred sources” so the AI ​​can refer to your favorite news outlets more often.

The company also created profiles to help publishers and creators promote their work in search.

“Google’s AI search capabilities deliver billions of clicks to the web each week, driving massive amounts of traffic to websites while responding to people’s evolving preferences in how they want to find information,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the company’s AI capabilities emphasize links to the web.

He said the study, which found users remained in AI mode 75 percent of the time, was flawed because it relied on a small sample size and gave users specific tasks that did not reflect normal user behavior.

Still, while the number of people visiting websites is decreasing, searches are increasingly being performed by AI chatbots, according to content delivery network company Cloudflare.

Where once someone might have searched Google for a soccer player’s World Cup performance and clicked on a thread on a sports site or social media for comments, bots now scour the web for that information and return the player’s stats to users who stay on Google.

According to Cloudflare, more than 50 percent of total web traffic now comes from non-humans.

It added that between June 2025 and April 2026, human traffic to the websites of companies in industries such as finance, publishing and retail fell by nearly 40 percent.

Cloudflare says the fundamental economic model of the web is changing, and chatbot-style search tools like Google’s could endanger the open web if left unchecked.

Google’s AI is influencing Wikipedia, as well as other popular chatbots.

The Wikimedia Foundation, which maintains the online encyclopedia, said human visitors to its site have fallen by 8% over the past year.

At the same time, we’ve also seen an increase in bots scraping sites to obtain data to train AI models.

“My job is to make sure people don’t forget about us just because Google’s user interface has changed,” said Serena Deckelman, chief product and technology officer at the Wikimedia Foundation.

Wikipedia has started promoting its own apps and social media channels to connect with readers outside of Google’s ecosystem, he said. It also started charging Google and other AI companies for access to data for training.

In June, the UK Competition and Markets Authority ordered Google to make changes to its AI search tools in the UK to address publisher concerns.

The regulator said Google requires chatbot responses to include clear links to the attributed content, which is intended to help drive traffic to websites.

The company is also required to allow website operators to opt out of having their content appear in AI Overview, making changes across search worldwide.

For some open web advocates, the fact that people can leave Google’s ecosystem is enough.

“Whether using traditional search methods or using AI, I think Google is still promoting access to an open internet,” said Tori Noble, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on defending civil liberties online.

“This is not a closed world,” she added, compared to a walled garden like Facebook, which requires a login to access.

For some website operators, this provides little comfort.

In May, Vox Media The Verge Publications such as have started selling some of their sites.

Box Media CEO Jim Bankoff said “decreased search traffic” influenced the decision to sell about half of the company to James Murdoch.

In June, The Verge and several other Vox Media websites were sold to Penske Media.

Google has often said “we’re pumping out more traffic and the web is bigger than ever,” Patel said. “And right next to them are dozens of publishers whose businesses are going bankrupt.” The New York Times