After largely sitting out the AI licensing land seize, Google is now approaching information publishers with offers to coach its fashions—signaling a shift in technique as rivals like OpenAI and Perplexity race forward with content material partnerships.
The tech big is recruiting 20 nationwide information shops as a part of a licensing “pilot challenge,” in keeping with Bloomberg.
“We’ve mentioned that we’re exploring and experimenting with new kinds of partnerships and product experiences, however we aren’t sharing particulars about particular plans or conversations at the moment,” a Google spokesperson advised ADWEEK in an announcement.
The search big is partnering with information shops to discover the position of AI by means of initiatives like its Pinpoint analysis software, the JournalismAI Innovation Problem, and newsroom coaching for its Gemini App, NotebookLM, and SynthID instruments.
“As we proceed to discover how AI can allow new experiences and capabilities for individuals across the globe, we’re figuring out particular kinds of knowledge and content material supply strategies that may assist improve our fashions and providers,” Google mentioned in its weblog submit.
Till now, the tech big has solely struck agreements with the Related Press and Reddit. In the meantime, AI upstarts like OpenAI and Perplexity have moved rapidly to lock in licensing offers with main publishers, providing cash, visitors, or visibility in alternate for entry to journalism that may practice or energy their fashions.
OpenAI has partnered with media organizations together with Condé Nast, Dotdash Meredith, and The Atlantic. In the meantime, Perplexity, by means of its Writer Partnership program, has struck offers with The Los Angeles Instances and The Unbiased, amongst others.
Google’s AI Overviews—automated summaries that always seem above conventional search hyperlinks—steadily pull from writer content material. Some media corporations fear the characteristic may slash their natural search visitors by as a lot as 60%, arguing that customers might get the data they want immediately from the abstract with out clicking by means of to the supply.
In line with Similarweb knowledge, The Wall Avenue Journal’s share of total search visitors fell to 24% from 29% over the previous three years. The New York Instances noticed its share of visitors from natural search decline to 36.5% in April 2025, down from almost 44% three years earlier.
On the identical time, Google’s grip on the worldwide search market is loosening: Its share has dropped beneath 90% in six of the previous seven months, as customers discover alternate options like ChatGPT. That shift could also be including stress on the corporate to restore its relationship with publishers, whose content material underpins not simply Google’s conventional search, however its AI future.
