Image by Filip Mishevski, from Unsplash
News Sites Collapse Under Google’s AI Takeover
- Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
News publishers are struggling to survive in the age of AI.
In a rush? Here are the quick facts:
- Google’s AI tools are reducing news site traffic from search.
- HuffPost and Washington Post saw traffic drop over 50%.
- Publishers are shifting focus to direct reader engagement.
News websites are losing their traffic because of Google’s new AI tools such as AI Overviews and AI Mode tools, as reported in an extensive article by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Google’s AI tools now provide answers to users without requiring them to follow links. The business model of publishers, which depends on website visits, becomes endangered when users avoid clicking links.
The Atlantic CEO, Nicholas Thompson, informed his staff that Google traffic will eventually reach zero levels in the future. He told WSJ, “Google is shifting from being a search engine to an answer engine. We have to develop new strategies.”
The News/Media Alliance, representing thousands of news outlets, recently accused Google of stripping publishers of both traffic and ad revenue.
Danielle Coffey, the group’s president said in a press release , “Links were the last redeeming quality of search that gave publishers traffic and revenue. Now Google just takes content by force and uses it with no return, the definition of theft.
William Lewis, publisher and CEO of The Washington Post, warned: “This is a serious threat to journalism that should not be underestimated,” as reported by WSJ.
Similar web data show that HuffPost, The Washington Post, and Business Insider experienced more than a 50% decline in their website traffic during the last three years, as reported by WSJ.
Business Insider reduced its workforce by 21% during the previous month. CEO Barbara Peng explained that the company made this move to maintain its ability to survive through “ extreme traffic drops outside of our control,”as reported by WSJ.
The New York Times experienced a 7.5% decrease in Google search traffic, which dropped from 44% to 36.5% since 2022, as noted by WSJ.
WSJ claims that it experienced an increase in search visitors, although they represented a decreasing portion of total website traffic.
In an interview with The Verge about publishers’ concerns, Google CEO Sundar Pichai insisted the company continues to drive traffic to websites. “No one sends traffic to the web in the way we do,” he said.
Image by Freepik
CIO Aims to Expand Team by Creating Digital Clones of Staff
- Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
UC San Diego’s CIO wants to use AI agents and digital twins to automate IT work, improve cybersecurity, and ease staff burdens.
In a rush? Here are the quick facts:
- UCSD CIO proposes using AI agents and digital twins to assist IT staff.
- UCSD faces complex cyber threats due to oceanographic research.
- Digital clones may improve productivity and staff well-being.
During this week’s Cisco Live conference , Dr. Vince Kellen proposed to utilize AI agents and digital twins of seasoned IT staff for handling repetitive tasks and late-night emergencies, as first reported by The Register .
Speaking to a packed audience, Kellen said, “All roads are leading to high levels of automation whenever we can,” reports The Register.
The university operates as a small city since it welcomes more than 100,000 people per day, while having to deal with declining student enrollment and limited financial resources
Kellen predicts that AI systems will acquire knowledge from tech workers to manage increasing demands in the future. “We have all this knowledge in human beings around network policy that we have to get out of their minds in a kind of drip irrigation fashion,” he said, as reported by The Register.
Kellen believes that slowly transferring this knowledge to AI would enable IT teams to decrease their workload and enhance network performance.
The Oceanography Institute at UCSD also faces national security threats. “When you put sonar in the water, you discover more than fish, and other countries want to know about that,” he warned, as reported by The Register.
Foreign-backed cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated, requiring staff to automate basic defenses so they can focus on more dangerous threats.
Kellen believes AI “has the potential to allow proactive detection of issues” and sees digital clones as a way to preserve staff expertise while easing their burden. “Then that person doesn’t have to be tortured when there’s another incident. They don’t get called the next time,” he added, as reported by The Register.
His idea raises a provocative question: Would you let your employer digitally clone your expertise if it meant fewer stressful callouts? As automation grows, the line between human and machine work may blur, but for IT teams, it could mean much-needed relief.
However, increased automation also raises cybersecurity concerns. Systems operated by automated IT workers and AI agents present attractive targets to hackers, since an attack on these systems could result in extensive disruptions.
Indeed, a compromised digital twin could be used to bypass security protocols and spread malware at a faster rate than human operators.
A report from the World Economic Forum argues that attackers can contaminate AI training data or discover vulnerabilities in AI models, which results in system failures or incorrect output generation.
These “data poisoning” and model exploitation attacks are often easy to carry out but hard to defend against, as current security measures are insufficient, as noted by ITPro .
Despite these risks, 96% of IT professionals recognize AI agents as a security threat, yet most organizations rush to implement them without proper controls or policies, as reported by ZDNet.
