Google AI Overview, a search engine powered by artificial intelligence, is coming to Poland. It displays ready-made answers to questions asked by users. Its functionality may negatively affect the traffic and revenues of publishers and content creators – informs the Wirtualnemedia.pl website.
Google AI Overview is intended to improve traditional search results. Users receive answers to queries in the form of short summaries of the most important information, instead of a list of links, as was the case until now. This is a similar mechanism to the tools ChatGPT, Perplexity or Microsoft Copilot.
Questions don't have to be simple
A new function in the Google search engine allows you to formulate more complex queries, the answers to which are scattered across many websites. This makes finding the information you need and deepening your knowledge much easier. However, you will not be able to use this tool to handle the simplest queries, such as weather or currency rates.
A breakthrough in information acquisition?
Google AI Overview was launched in May 2024 in the United States. The feature was initially criticized for being very buggy, suggesting adding glue to pizza sauce or eating small rocks. However, these bugs were fixed. In August 2024, the tool was available to people in the United Kingdom, India, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, and Brazil. In October, AI Overview was made available globally to over 100 countries and territories.
On March 26, Google made this feature available in its search engine in Poland, Austria, and Belgium, among others. In the coming days, more users will be able to use this tool. According to Google, this is a breakthrough in the way people obtain information on the Internet.
Bad news for publishers?
It turns out that AI Overview may also affect the activities of publishers, including news media. The new way of presenting information in the most popular search engine in Poland will probably lead to a decrease in organic traffic on many websites. It may also affect changes in the visibility of some websites and the need to introduce a new approach to content optimization towards AI.
Data from countries where the tool has been in operation for several months shows that there have been drops in website traffic since its introduction. According to the “2024 Digital Experience Benchmark Explorer” report prepared by Contentsquare, last year as many as 55% of websites from various industries saw a drop in traffic compared to the previous year.
KW
