Google will be forced to give publishers greater control over how their content is used in AI-generated search results after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) unveiled what it described as a “world-first” intervention aimed at re-balancing power between Big Tech and content creators.

The move comes as publishers increasingly complain that Google’s AI Overviews – the summaries that appear at the top of search results – are siphoning traffic away from websites by answering users’ questions before they click through to the original source.

Under new rules imposed by the CMA, publishers will be able to prevent their content from being used in AI features such as AI Overviews without having to remove themselves from Google’s traditional search results.

Google will also be required to provide clearer attribution and links when publisher content appears in AI-generated responses.

The regulator said the changes would give publishers “effective controls” over how their content is used and place them in a stronger position to negotiate commercial agreements with Google as AI increasingly reshapes the economics of online search.

Google accounts for more than 90 per cent of UK search activity, according to the CMA, making it a critical source of traffic and revenue for news organisations and other online publishers.

Publishers had long accepted that relationship as the price of visibility, but now the rapid rise of generative AI has changed the calculation.

Many media groups argue that AI-generated summaries increasingly keep users within Google’s ecosystem rather than directing them to the websites that produced the original reporting, analysis or information.

Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA, said it was “crucial that content publishers, including news organisations, have appropriate bargaining power over how their content is used”.

“Today, we have introduced a world-first requirement on Google’s search services in the UK, enabling fair treatment, greater transparency and meaningful choice for businesses and consumers,” she said.

The regulator said publishers would also be able to opt out of allowing their content to be used to fine-tune Google’s AI models, following concerns raised during consultations with the industry.

Publishers push back against AI search

News organisations across the UK, Europe and the US have become increasingly vocal about the impact of AI-generated search results on audience traffic, arguing that tech firms are extracting value from journalism without providing fair compensation.

The CMA said Google would also be required to provide publishers with clearer information about how their content is used in generative AI products, as well as detailed metrics showing how AI features affect user engagement.

Theo Bamber, chief executive of the News Media Association, described the measures as “a significant step towards levelling the playing field and building a fair, transparent digital economy where premium content is properly respected and fairly compensated”.

Society of Editors chief executive Dawn Alford said the requirements represented “a welcome step in achieving greater control and a fairer deal for publishers over how their valuable content is used”.

“The requirements must now be fully implemented and enforced and form part of a wider goal to build a digital future that values, respects and properly compensates creative content,” she added.

Google said it was already testing new controls for website owners following discussions with regulators and would begin rolling them out to a group of UK publishers before expanding them globally.

Mrinalini Loew, general manager of Google Search Ecosystem, said the company was “actively listening to feedback from publishers and creators” and engaging with regulators “to ensure website owners have the right tools as user preferences evolve”.

The new tools will allow website owners to decide whether their content can appear in and help generate responses within AI products such as AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Google said websites that opt out would not receive traffic or impressions from those AI features, although the controls would not affect rankings in traditional search results.

The CMA has given Google nine months to implement the full package of changes, but said it expects key controls to be introduced sooner. The regulator added it was continuing to monitor Google’s broader AI search rollout and could impose further measures if concerns over competition, traffic or compensation persist.

The intervention follows Google’s designation last year as having “strategic market status” under Britain’s new digital markets regime, giving the watchdog enhanced powers to impose conduct requirements on some of the world’s largest technology companies.