A shift to AI-generated search results will decrease the traffic that Google sends to publishers’ sites, as more people get what they need straight from the Google search page instead.

At its annual I/O conference on Wednesday, Google announced a slew of “experiments” and changes that are coming to search.

It’s early days. But if these changes are rolled out widely, they’ll be the most significant overhaul of some of the important space on the internet in quite awhile. The shift could significantly decrease the traffic that Google sends to publishers’ sites, as more people get what they need right from the Google search page instead. They could also do some damage to the affiliate revenue that publishers derive from product recommendations.

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