Good morning and welcome to your weekly Press Gazette briefing. I’m happy to announce I’ll be your regular writer of this newsletter going forward.

This week we’ve got plenty more from the Google AI battlefront.

Digital Content Next has just put out some figures which they say show the stark impact of Google’s AI products on search referral traffic on major US publishers.

Perhaps unsurprisingly non-news publishers have been harder hit than news. But DCN’s Jason Kint warned that the advantage newsbrands have from being able to cover breaking news in a way that AI simply can’t might not last forever.

If you missed it last week, I gathered some rather candid responses to Google’s blog claiming its AI products are not harming website clickthroughs. One SEO expert compared the attitude to the dystopian world of 1984 while another told Google to “stop the BS”.

Also in today’s newsletter: I broke down some new exclusive data shared by Chartbeat indicating the proportion of traffic sent to publishers in the US and UK from search, social and direct. Search perhaps surprisingly appears fairly steady but this could be due to the impact of Discover - which many publishers are increasingly relying on, although we’ve recently explored why this might not be wise.

Away from Google, the data also shows the stark decline of page views coming from Facebook over recent years - although it still completely eclipses other social platforms for traffic shared with publishers.

And finally Chartbeat also shared data showing a long decline in referral traffic from news aggregators. Coincidentally, Smartnews just launched a second app which it says will highlight more thoughtful news and “what’s more right” - instead of other platforms they believe rely on outrage and clicks.

I thought these two stories tied together quite nicely - so here’s the state of news aggregators and what Smartnews is hoping to do better.

Since I’ll be sticking around with this newsletter - if we’ve never spoken before, please feel free to drop me a line anytime on charlotte.tobitt@pressgazette.co.uk to talk about success stories, the issues facing the industry, or share any feedback on what Press Gazette does. I’d love to hear from you.

UK and US publishers say Google AI is harming website traffic

Digital Content Next in US and PPA in UK say member publishers being hit hard in search.

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Smartnews launches new app to counter rage-bait and polarisation

Smartnews tries something new in tough market for aggregators.

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Publisher traffic sources: Google steady but social and direct referrals are down

Read more

Also on Press Gazette

• Google told to ‘stop the BS’ as it claims AI has not harmed website clickthroughs

• Bloomberg Media reports growing subs, advertising and events revenue

• Why publishers should worry about growing reliance on Google Discover

• Reddit claims top spot as most cited domain in AI-generated answers

• Former Techcrunch staff join rapidly expanding defence technology title

• US news giants grow revenue despite AI-driven turmoil