For many businesses their website is a vital shopfront, so losing 140 million visits in a single year would be a big problem. That's what happened to HubSpot, and the cause was AI. For companies like HubSpot there are several causes for the drop in traffic. Search engines rejigged their algorithms to fight AI slop, which made it more important for a website to be seen as credible on a core topic.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70n2rjgxeyo
Google is beginning to replace news headlines in its search results with ones that are AI-generated. After doing something similar in its Google Discover news feed, it’s starting to mess with headlines in the traditional “10 blue links,” too. We’ve found multiple examples where Google replaced headlines we wrote with ones we did not, sometimes changing their meaning in the process.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/896490/google-replace-news-headlines-in-search-canary-coal-mine-experiment
As of this morning, the AI overviews for questions like “what is the normal range for liver blood tests?” have been disabled entirely. Spokesperson Davis Thompson told The Verge that, “We invest significantly in the quality of AI Overviews, particularly for topics like health, and the vast majority provide accurate information. Our internal team of clinicians reviewed what’s been shared with us and found that in many instances, the information was not inaccurate and was also supported by high-quality websites. In cases where AI Overviews miss some context, we work to make broad improvements, and we also take action under our policies where appropriate.”
https://www.theverge.com/news/860356/google-pulls-alarming-dangerous-medical-ai-overviews
Google will not have to sell its Chrome web browser but must share information with competitors, a US federal judge has ordered. The remedies decided by District Judge Amit Mehta have emerged after a years-long court battle over Google's dominance in online search. The case centred around Google's position as the default search engine on a range of its own products such as Android and Chrome as well as others made by the likes of Apple. The US Department of Justice had demanded that Google sell Chrome – Tuesday's decision means the tech giant can keep it but it will be barred from having exclusive contracts and must share search data with rivals.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8zdrenm1zo
Everyone knows traditional search is dying. No one quite knows what comes next. But the rise of AI search comes with a brutal cost for traditional websites. According to the same Pew research, searches with AI Overviews result in dramatically fewer clicks to other websites. When Google shows an AI summary, users click through to other sites just 8% of the time, compared to 15% for searches without AI answers, which represents a nearly 50% drop. Even worse, only 1% of AI Overviews generate clicks to the sources they cite. What's emerging from the chaos is a discipline marketers are calling GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) or AIO (Artificial Intelligence Optimization), essentially SEO for the AI era. But unlike traditional search optimization, which followed somewhat predictable patterns, AI optimization feels more like reading tea leaves.
https://qz.com/internet-future-google-search-ai
Google on Monday announced an update to its Chrome web browser that will introduce AI-generated store reviews to U.S. shoppers with the aim of helping to determine the best places to make a purchase. The feature, which will be available by clicking an icon just to the left of the web address in the browser, will display a pop-up that informs consumers about the store’s reputation for things like product quality, shopping, pricing, customer service, and returns.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/28/google-chrome-adds-ai-powered-store-summaries-to-help-u-s-shoppers/
On the final day of the most consequential tech antitrust trial in decades, a question from the bench may have gotten to the core of Google’s (GOOGL) defense: Could artificial intelligence already be doing what regulators hope to accomplish through the courts? While the DOJ has focused on Google’s multibillion-dollar default search deals — particularly with Apple (AAPL) — the judge appears to be looking at whether the concept of a “search market” still applies in an AI-driven world.
https://qz.com/google-antitrust-case-ai-search-chatgpt-1851783125