Google Adds AI Summaries to Discover, ‘What’s New’ Sports Feed to Search
▼ Summary
– Google introduced AI-generated summaries in Discover for trending topics, citing multiple publishers and allowing expansion for more details.
– The Discover AI summaries are now available in the U.S., South Korea, and India after earlier testing in the U.S. this summer.
– A new “What’s new” button in Search will provide a feed of trending updates and articles for sports teams or players on mobile.
– The Search sports feature is rolling out in the U.S. over the coming weeks, focusing on mobile users.
– Publishers are concerned that AI summaries may reduce click-throughs to articles, potentially impacting website traffic negatively.
Google is rolling out two significant AI-driven updates to its platforms: AI-generated summaries within the Discover feed and a dedicated “What’s New” sports feed in Search. These additions aim to streamline how users access trending information and sports updates directly from their mobile devices.
In the Google Discover feed, users in the United States, South Korea, and India will now encounter AI-generated previews for popular topics they follow. These summaries pull information from multiple publishers and can be expanded to reveal more detailed information along with links to the original articles. This feature had been undergoing testing in the U.S. since the summer, with a Google spokesperson confirming its official launch there in July for trending lifestyle subjects like sports and entertainment on both iOS and Android.
Simultaneously, Google Search is introducing a new “What’s New” button for mobile users searching for specific sports teams or players. Tapping this button opens a specialized feed filled with the latest trending updates and articles related to that team or athlete. This new sports-centric feature is scheduled to become available to users in the U.S. over the next several weeks.
For many online publishers, Google Discover has served as a reliable source of web traffic. While Google states these new tools are designed to help people explore more content across the web, publishers are advised to monitor the situation closely. There is a potential concern that these AI-generated summaries could reduce the number of users who click through to read the full articles on publisher websites. This scenario mirrors the traffic impact some websites experienced following the introduction of AI Overviews in Google’s main search results.
The broader context is that while referral traffic from Google to news publishers remains steady, a substantial portion of this traffic is increasingly coming from these curated feeds and features, rather than from traditional web searches. Google’s official announcement frames these new capabilities as AI-powered tools to help users connect with web content more effectively in both Search and Discover.
(Source: Search Engine Land)
