Google revealed earlier today, Wednesday that it is testing AI-powered story summaries and overviews on the Google News sites of partner newspapers as part of a new pilot initiative discovered.
Der Spiegel, El País, Folha, Infobae, Kompas, The Guardian, The Times of India, The Washington Examiner, and The Washington Post are a selected few of the news outlets taking part in the test initiative.
Google further stated that in a blog post that the new commercial partnership initiative aims to further “explore how AI can drive more engaged audiences.” The business will collaborate with publishers as part of the new AI pilot program to test out new Google News features in the coming days.
Google claims that by incorporating AI-powered article summaries, readers will gain additional context prior to clicking through to read an article. Publications taking part in the commercial pilot program will receive direct payments from Google, which may compensate for the possible drop in traffic to their websites, even though AI-generated summaries may result in less clicks on news stories.
Only participating publications’ Google News pages will display the AI-powered story summaries; they won’t show up anywhere else on Google News or in Search.
Google has previously introduced and used the news summaries using artificial intelligence. AI summaries were introduced by the business in July for Google’s search app’s primary news feed, Discover. As a result of this modification, consumers no longer see any headlines from significant publications in the feed. Rather, viewers see the logos of several news outlets in the upper-left corner, followed by a summary produced by AI that references those sources.
As part of the new pilot program, Google is also experimenting with audio briefings for those who would rather listen to the news than read it.
These features will include links to publications and straightforward attribution, according to the company.
Google further stated that it is also collaborating with companies including Estadão, Antara, Yonhap, and The Associated Press to improve results and add real-time data to the Gemini app.
In a statement from its blog post, Google claimed that they will continue to improve their products for people around the world and engage with feedback from stakeholders across the ecosystem as the way people consume information evolves. Also it further says that from major news publishers to new and emerging voices, they are working together with websites and creators of all sizes.
Google announcement on Wednesday also says that it is expanding its “Preferred Sources” function worldwide, having previously introduced it in the United States and India in August.
Its says that users can choose which news websites and or blogs they want to show up in Google’s Top Stories section.
The feature will only be accessible to English-speaking users globally in the next few days, and Google intends to launch it for all its supported languages early in the coming year, 2026.
In the upcoming weeks, Google will also highlight links from your news subscriptions and display them in a special carousel within the Gemini app. AI Overviews and AI Mode will follow.
Although these features facilitate users’ access to news from their favoured sources, they run the risk of trapping them in an ideological bubble that restricts their exposure to diverse viewpoints.
Finally, Google declared that the quantity of inline links in AI Mode will be increased as It’s also provides “contextual introductions” for embedded links, which are short justifications of why a link could be worth investigating.
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