Google’s AI Search update has sparked fears among publishers as experts warn AI-generated summaries could reduce website traffic, hurt revenues, and threaten independent journalism globally.
The ongoing feud between big tech and news publishers seems to have wider implications for the newsrooms across the world. With Google’s new update on AI Search, the company announced how its AI agents will scan “blogs, news sites and social posts” to present crisp answers and quick summaries to users. Amid the issue, the question arises, what happens if readers stop checking the original content from the news sites and simply go with the AI-generated content? This will undoubtedly bring losses to the new outlets in India and across the world.
AI-powered search is fundamentally altering the traffic dynamics that have sustained digital news publishers, shifting the model from content discovery to direct in-platform consumption. Timesnownews.com spoke with experts to understand how such a move could impact India.
India’s Existing Laws May Not Be Ready For AI
Prabhu Ram, VP, Industry Research Group, CMR, said, “India’s copyright and IT frameworks, which predate generative AI, provide limited clarity on issues such as large-scale content usage, attribution, and fair compensation, prompting ongoing policy discussions.”
He stressed that the critical question is whether regulatory frameworks can keep pace with AI and evolve quickly enough to prevent market consolidation before policy clarity emerges. “As AI adoption accelerates, the long-term outcome will depend on the ability of policymakers to balance innovation with the sustainability of independent journalism,” added Ram.
While referencing Australia’s proposed measures that push big tech to compensate the local news outlets, Shweta Bansal, a technology lawyer, said, “Australia’s NBI is a step in the right direction. India should not copy paste it in a hurry. The question is not whether there is a tax on platforms, but what exactly we are taxing them for.”
Bansal highlighted, “There are three very different kinds of value extraction – aggregation, algorithmic amplification and AI training and any Indian framework has to define ‘use’ with technical precision before defining a price. A poorly written law will either be circumvented in a week or litigated for a decade.”
Independent Journalism Faces A Defining Moment
Australia asked major tech giants like TikTok, Google and Meta to strike deals with local news publishers or face a 2.25 per cent tax on local revenue as per its newly proposed News Bargaining Incentive. This move comes as news consumption is rapidly shifting to social media, where users depend heavily on their feeds rather than media outlets, increasing concerns around fair compensation. India’s Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) and the Indian Newspaper Society have often raised similar questions whether a similar path should be adopted.
