Google Deepens AI Partnerships with Top Publishers

Google is significantly expanding its suite of search and news features through a series of global updates and strategic partnerships with leading publishers. These changes are designed to give users more control over their news feeds and to integrate artificial intelligence more deeply into how content is discovered and consumed. The initiatives include a worldwide rollout of the Preferred Sources tool, new subscription highlighting, and a major pilot program testing AI features with prominent international news organizations.

The Preferred Sources feature, which allows people to customize their Top Stories section to favor specific outlets, is now available to all English-language users around the world. Support for all other languages is scheduled to follow early next year. Data from its initial phase reveals strong user engagement. Nearly 90,000 unique sources, from local blogs to global media brands, have been selected by individuals. Notably, when a user designates a preferred source, they click through to that site’s content at twice the average rate, demonstrating the feature’s impact on driving traffic.

A separate development aims to add value for paying subscribers. A new feature will soon highlight links from a user’s paid news subscriptions directly within Google’s search results. Not only will these links be visually prioritized, but they will also be grouped in a dedicated carousel. This functionality will debut in the Gemini app within weeks, with plans to extend it to AI Overviews and the broader AI Mode in the future, though a specific public timeline has not been shared.

Concurrently, Google is refining how links are presented within its AI-powered search mode. The company is increasing the quantity of inline links and refreshing their visual design. Furthermore, it is introducing brief contextual introductions next to these links, offering a short explanation of why a particular source might be relevant to the query. Another AI tool, called Web Guide, which organizes links by topic, is now operating at twice its previous speed and appearing in more experimental search results.

Perhaps the most forward-looking element of this announcement is a commercial pilot program with a consortium of major publishers. Partners include The Guardian, The Washington Post, Der Spiegel, El País, and The Times of India, among others. This collaboration will test new AI-powered features within Google News, such as automated article overviews on a publication’s dedicated page and audio briefings for users who prefer to listen. Google emphasizes that these features will include clear attribution and links back to the full original articles.

In a related move, separate partnerships with organizations like The Associated Press, Yonhap, and others will focus on supplying real-time information specifically for the Gemini app. These efforts build on Google’s broader strategy of collaboration, noting that the company has established partnerships with over 3,000 publications and content providers across more than 50 countries in recent years.

The implications of these updates are substantial for both users and the publishing industry. The data from Preferred Sources indicates that customization directly leads to higher engagement with chosen outlets. For publishers with subscription models, the new highlighting feature could fundamentally alter how their existing audience discovers content across Google’s various platforms, potentially strengthening reader relationships.

Looking forward, the global English-language rollout of Preferred Sources is effective immediately. The subscription highlighting will begin in the Gemini app shortly, while the publisher AI pilot is already underway with its inaugural partners in Google News.

(Source: Search Engine Journal)