Google is quietly paying some publishers for the content that powers its AI search answers.
According to a report from The Information, first surfaced by Digiday, Google launched a pilot program about a year ago that compensates roughly 100 publishers based on how much their work feeds into AI Overviews, AI Mode, and the Gemini chatbot. The program reportedly ties payment to a measure of contribution rather than a flat licensing fee. One publisher that joined at launch said it earned over $1 million. Google has not confirmed financial terms or said whether the test will expand beyond its current publisher list.
AI Overviews have been blamed for a steady drop in referral traffic to the sites whose work trains and feeds them, a complaint publishers have made since the feature launched in 2024. A quiet pay-for-contribution pilot looks like Google hedging against the lawsuits and regulatory scrutiny that traffic cannibalization invites, without admitting the summaries actually replace a visit to the source.
Call it a tip jar for the websites Google's answer boxes are slowly replacing - just don't expect the other millions of publishers left out of the pilot to feel compensated.