Google’s AI Search Gives Sites Dire Choice: Share Data or Die
Publishers say blocking the company’s AI bot could also prevent their sites from showing up in search
Google’s dominance in search – which the US Justice Department calls an illegal monopoly – is giving it a decisive advantage in the AI wars.
Photographer: Gabby Jones/BloombergGoogle now displays convenient artificial intelligence-based answers at the top of its search pages — meaning users may never click through to the websites whose data is being used to power those results. But many site owners say they can’t afford to block Google’s AI from summarizing their content.
That’s because the Google tool that sifts through web content to come up with its AI answers is the same one that keeps track of web pages for search results, according to publishers. Blocking Alphabet Inc.’s Google the way sites have blocked some of its AI competitors would also hamper a site’s ability to be discovered online.