Google has admitted to paying about 100 publishers for content used in AI overviews, but the payouts are minimal, with some earning less than $1,000 per month.

The company has long resisted direct payments to publishers, arguing that websites get traffic in exchange for allowing Google bots to scrape their content for use in search and knowledge graph tools.

In the age of AI, that relationship is breaking down, hence the AI pilot.

Publishers in the program aren’t getting much for their trouble. The Information heard from several small and mid-sized publishers in the program that Google’s AI payments are miniscule, equaling roughly one-tenth of one percent of their advertising revenue.

These payments have been so disappointing that several larger publishers have reportedly declined to participate in the program. These publishers hope that by refusing to join the pilot, they can force Google to offer a more generous deal.

Payments under the program vary widely, but some sites are doing well. One publisher that joined early is on track to earn more than $1 million per year, a big chunk of its revenue.

A more recent addition to the pilot has earned $50,000 to $60,000, which is a small slice of its earnings. Various smaller sites are seeing less than $1,000 from the program over several months, which won’t come close to offsetting declining traffic.

In general, publishers in the test seem to agree that certain topics that are not as widely covered but have strong niche interest earn more, including anime and gaming.

However, publishers also say that tracking the payments from month to month in the search console is often confusing. It’s not clear what counts as a meaningful contribution to an AI answer, so it’s impossible to plan for future earnings.

A shifting landscape Google has noted over the years that its goal is to organize the world’s information, but that only works if there’s information online to organize.

Frontier AI models are trained on data from around the web, letting them answer many questions within the knowledge cutoff. But in a search context, those answers often need the backing of live web content.

If websites stop publishing or start blocking Google, AI search quality will decline.

The AI contribution pilot is a step toward forging a new relationship between Google and the publishers it relies on. However, the small payments and unclear nature of AI contributions could make expanding the program difficult.

In the meantime, ill will is growing. Some publishers have already started fighting back against Google’s shift toward AI search.

Source: arstechnica