Latest news with #AIOverviews
The Star
9 hours ago
- Business
- The Star
Cloudflare launches tool to help website owners monetize AI bot crawler access
FILE PHOTO: A logo of CLOUDFLARE sits outside the company's house on the opening day of the 55th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo NEW YORK (Reuters) -Cloudflare has launched a tool that blocks bot crawlers from accessing content without permission or compensation to help websites make money from AI firms trying to access and train on their content, the software company said on Tuesday. The tool allows website owners to choose whether artificial intelligence crawlers can access their material and set a price for access through a "pay per crawl" model, which will help them control how their work is used and compensated, Cloudflare said. With AI crawlers increasingly collecting content without sending visitors to the original source, website owners are looking to develop additional revenue sources as search traffic referrals that once generated advertising revenue decline. The initiative is supported by major publishers including Condé Nast and Associated Press, as well as social media companies such as Reddit and Pinterest. Cloudflare's Chief Strategy Officer Stephanie Cohen said the goal of such tools was to give publishers control over their content, and ensure a sustainable ecosystem for online content creators and AI companies. "The change in traffic patterns has been rapid, and something needed to change," Cohen said in an interview. "This is just the beginning of a new model for the internet." Google, for example, has seen its ratio of crawls to visitors referred back to sites drop to 18:1 from 6:1 just six months ago, according to Cloudflare data, suggesting the search giant is maintaining its crawling but decreasing referrals. The decline could be a result of users finding answers directly within Google's search results, such as AI Overviews. Still, Google's ratio is much higher than other AI companies, such as OpenAI's 1,500:1. For decades, search engines have indexed content on the internet directing users back to websites, an approach that rewards creators for producing quality content. However, AI companies' crawlers have disrupted this model because they harvest material without sending visitors to the original source and aggregate information through chatbots such as ChatGPT, depriving creators of revenue and recognition. Many AI companies are circumventing a common web standard used by publishers to block the scraping of their content for use in AI systems, and argue they have broken no laws in accessing content for free. In response, some publishers, including the New York Times, have sued AI companies for copyright infringement, while others have struck deals to license their content. Reddit, for example, has sued AI startup Anthropic for allegedly scraping Reddit user comments to train its AI chatbot, while inking a content licensing deal with Google. (Reporting by Krystal Hu in New York; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
Campaign ME
a day ago
- Business
- Campaign ME
AI overviews have changed search; here's how MENA brands can stay relevant
Until recently, optimising for top-of-funnel search queries was a cornerstone of user acquisition strategies. Publishers relied on search-driven traffic to fuel ad revenue, while e-commerce brands reduced their customer acquisition costs (CAC) by ranking for intent-rich keywords. But the landscape has shifted. User behaviour is increasingly moving towards conversational platforms like ChatGPT, and the most significant disruption came with Google's rollout of AI Overviews. This ushered in the so-called 'zero-click' era, where answers are delivered on the results page, and users no longer need to visit websites to get the information they seek. The quiet revolution reshaping Google Search has reached our doorstep. Are we ready? In 2024, Google began rolling out AI Overviews across global markets, first as an experiment and now as the default experience in over 200 countries. As marketers, publishers, and e-commerce leaders in the Middle East, we must pause and ask: what does this shift mean for the digital ecosystems we've worked so hard to build? If you run an online business or publish content for a living, your customer acquisition model likely relies heavily on Google. But what happens when your most valuable traffic source starts doing the job for you and not necessarily in your favour? From helpful summaries to zero-click search Globally, AI overviews are changing the game by summarising answers at the top of search results. Users now receive AI-generated content compiled from across the web, reducing the need to click through to original sources. Data from the U.S. shows a concerning trend: search impressions are up, but click-through rates are down. In fact, over 60 per cent of searches are now 'zero-click', meaning users get what they need from the results page and never visit a website. Publishers like The Planet D have reported traffic drops as high as 90 per cent. E-commerce sites are seeing fewer clicks on their SEO-rich product pages, as Google compiles reviews, specs, and comparisons directly into the AI response. We can expect similar patterns here in the MENA region as adoption accelerates. For businesses that depend on organic traffic, this isn't just disruption; it's a redefinition of how digital visibility works. E-Commerce in MENA: what gets lost in AI translation E-commerce players in the region are already grappling with aggressive competition, rising customer acquisition costs, and maturing consumer expectations. AI overviews add a new twist: they flatten the upper funnel. Previously, a user would research 'best travel baby strollers', browse a few product pages, read reviews, and maybe land on a well-optimised blog post before they convert. Today, they may get an AI-generated summary with a few product picks before they even see an e-commerce website. This shift not only cuts off the path to brand discovery but also strips away the opportunity to influence the buying journey. Worse, it challenges the ROI of content strategy since users may consume the essence of the work without ever engaging with the brand platform. Publishers at risk: content without the clicks For publishers, especially those investing in news, thought leadership, or how-to content, the threat is existential. In markets like the UK, news outlets have reported 40 per cent traffic declines since the introduction of AI overviews. As search behaviour shifts, the foundational economics of publishing are put under pressure: fewer visitors mean fewer ad impressions, fewer subscribers, and diminished relevance in the eyes of advertisers. In the Middle East, where publishers are still navigating digital transformation and revenue diversification, this could accelerate the collapse of traffic-dependent models. Local journalism, niche content creators, and even lifestyle portals must brace for a reality where quality content is consumed by AI, not readers. What can businesses do now? Practical advice for the Middle East We are not powerless in this shift. In fact, MENA's relatively young digital economy gives us a chance to leapfrog by adopting adaptive strategies early. Here's how: Structure content for AI visibility Use schema markup and structured data to make it easy for AI to cite content. Add concise summaries, Q&A sections, and bullet points to key pages. Create content that AI can't replicate Lean into real-life case studies, personal insights, and local expertise. Focus on formats that are harder to summarise (e.g., videos, interactive tools, long-form opinion pieces). Maximise conversion for high-intent visitors Accept that some users will only land on the website when they're ready to act. Invest in optimised product pages, fast mobile experiences, and trust signals to capture value from these rare but golden clicks. Diversify traffic sources Grow email lists, strengthen social presence, and explore performance marketing beyond search. Treat every Google visitor as a guest, and aim to make them a subscriber or follower before they leave. Monitor AI performance in your industry Use SEO tools to track when AI Overviews appear for your business target queries. Watch how your competitors are cited or ignored, and adjust accordingly. Invest in brand awareness across channels Build brand recall and visibility by maintaining a consistent presence across platforms where your audience spends time. This includes social media, video platforms, newsletters, podcasts, and offline activations. Wherever possible, position your brand as a destination – not just a result – so audiences learn to seek you out directly rather than only discover you via search. Create offline touchpoints and community moments Complement your digital strategy with real-world engagement. Host branded events, community gatherings, expert panels, or workshops tailored to your audience's interests. These offline moments reinforce brand presence, foster loyalty, and give your audience a tangible reason to stay connected beyond the algorithm. A moment of reckoning, or of reinvention? The arrival of AI in search is not a one-time change; it's the beginning of a new era. In the MENA region, where there is a huge content potential yet to be unlocked, it's important to seize this opportunity and redefine how brands are engaging with their consumers and where they can build better visibility and journeys beyond 3rd party platforms. Your website, your content, and your brand still matter. But the rules of discoverability are shifting. Instead of chasing clicks, we must earn relevance in new ways. With this change, it's also important to make sure that the way brands measure the impact of their content changes and that they shift not only metrics but also how success looks for their marketing efforts. As content marketers and digital leaders in the Middle East, our challenge is not to resist the algorithmic tide but to learn how to swim in it on our own terms. By Rasha Abushamaa, Content Marketing Expert
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Indian Express
YouTube rolls out AI search results for Premium users: Will it impact views, engagement?
Google is bringing AI-generated search results to YouTube as part of its broader efforts to reinvent the traditional search experience of users by integrating generative AI across its entire ecosystem. The AI-generated search results on the video sharing platform will appear at the top of the results page. It will feature multiple YouTube videos along with an AI-generated summary of each video. Users can tap on the thumbnails of the videos to begin playing them directly from the search results. The AI-generated summary accompanying each video will include information that is most relevant to the user's search query. However, the AI-powered search experience on the platform is currently limited to YouTube Premium subscribers. It is an opt-in feature, which means that Premium subscribers will have to manually enable the feature by visiting YouTube's experimental page. The move signals Google's shift towards generative AI-based search and discovery with AI-summarised answers replacing traditional links. Similar to AI Overviews in Google Search, this feature is designed to appear above organic search results as part of the big tech company's strategy to have more of its users engage with its AI systems. 'In the coming days, our conversational AI tool will be expanding to some non-Premium users in the US. Premium members already love it for getting more info, recommendations, and even quizzing themselves on key concepts in academic videos,' YouTube said in a blog post published on June 26. While only YouTube Premium subscribers can currently choose to see AI-generated search results on the platform, it is likely that Google will expand access to all users in the future. By showing AI-generated summaries of videos, YouTube users might be less inclined to open videos and watch them on the platform. The feature could also have an impact on engagement as fewer users might comment, subscribe, and generally interact with content creators. Something similar is already happening in web search. Multiple studies have shown that people are increasingly looking for information by asking questions to chatbots like ChatGPT or Gemini as opposed to using web browsers like Safari. This defection away from traditional search engines towards generative AI has negative consequences, especially for publishers and websites that have relied on search traffic to generate revenue. A recent study by content licensing platform TollBit found that news sites and blogs receive 96 per cent less referral traffic from generative AI-driven search engines than from traditional Google Search. When asked about publishers seeing a dip in traffic coming from Search, Elizabeth Reid, the head of Google Search, previously told 'We see that the clicks to web pages when AI Overviews exist are of higher quality. People spend more time on these pages and engage more. They are expressing higher satisfaction with the responses when we show the AI Overviews.' Even though the video is just one tap away, the AI-generated summary in YouTube search results will probably give users an idea of all the relevant parts of the video. This could potentially make it harder for YouTube channels to grow and earn revenue. In addition, YouTube is bringing its Veo 3 AI video generation model to YouTube Shorts in the coming months, according to CEO Neal Mohan. The AI model capable of generating cinematic-level visuals with complete sound and dialogue, was reportedly trained on subsets of the 20-billion video library uploaded on YouTube.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Why the terrible year for Google stock may be overblown
Alphabet's (GOOG, GOOGL) rough run in 2025 may be nearing the end. In a new Jefferies report, its analysts argue that fears around Google's competitiveness in the AI era are overblown and that the stock's current valuation offers an "attractive entry point" for long-term investors. The firm maintained its Buy rating on Alphabet shares, keeping its price target at $210, representing more than 20% upside. The stock has been down 9% year to date, underperforming the Nasdaq and lagging far behind high-flying "Magnificent Seven" peers like Nvidia (NVDA), which hit a record high earlier this week. Jefferies' analysts, led by Brent Thill, identified five key reasons why Alphabet is one of the best-positioned AI consumer stocks. To start off, Google Search has remained resilient against competition from chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Perplexity. Google has maintained a 90% stranglehold on the search market, and there are signs its AI features are gaining traction. For example, its AI Overviews are used by 1.5 billion monthly active users. Meanwhile, YouTube is still undervalued, despite driving around 30% more revenue than Netflix, which trades at a higher multiple. Thill identified YouTube as a "catalyst" in a video-first world. Alphabet's flagship large language model, Gemini, hasn't gotten as much attention as OpenAI's ChatGPT, but it now processes 480 trillion tokens monthly, a 50x annual increase, per Jefferies. Its integration across Google products helps generate more intelligent results. This performance edge and data scale are reasons to stay bullish on the company's AI future, Thill said. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) has long trailed Amazon (AMZN) Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft (MSFT) Azure, but there is room for growth. Thill said there's upside from Google's leadership in AI and machine learning infrastructure tools and continued federal contracts. Investors may be underestimating the cloud unit's long-term potential. Even as Google invests heavily in AI, its margins are quietly recovering. Operating margin hit a record 40% in Q1 2025. Thill expects that trend to continue, thanks in part to past cost-cutting efforts, such as layoffs and buyouts and AI-driven efficiencies. In 2024, Alphabet's EBITDA margin expanded by 300 basis points. With $84 billion in net cash, the company has the flexibility to keep buying back shares and funding innovation. Perhaps the biggest part of Jefferies' bull case is the stock's valuation. Alphabet trades at just 11x forward-12-month EV/EBITDA, below its 10-year average of 12.4x and well off its recent high near 15x. That's despite a solid balance sheet; improving margins; growth opportunities in AI, cloud, and video; and moonshots like Waymo. "We see an attractive risk/reward in the longterm," Thill wrote. Alphabet's underperformance this year may have more to do with market rotation and AI hype fatigue than any real fundamental weakness. The company is set to report second quarter earnings in late July after the bell, which could be the company's next chance to reset the narrative. Francisco Velasquez is an associate reporter at Yahoo Finance. Sign in to access your portfolio
CNBC
4 days ago
- Business
- CNBC
Buy this megacap tech stock that's set to rally more than 20% due to AI, says Citizens
The ramp up in artificial intelligence may send shares of Alphabet higher in the coming months, according to Citizens. The investment firm upgraded the "Magnificent Seven" name to market outperform from market perform and set its price target at $220, implying nearly 27% upside from Thursday's close. "We believe AI is a net tailwind, with ChatGPT's impact too small today to move enough queries away from Google to materially impact results, while AI is expanding the search opportunity by answering a broader array of queries and extending monetization as AI better infers user intent," analyst Andrew Boone wrote in a note published Thursday. While the megacap tech stock has fallen more than 8% this year, it has rebounded about 6% over the past three months. It has also jumped more than 4% in the past week amid investor confidence in AI, which propelled other stocks linked to the industry like Nvidia higher this week as well. GOOGL 3M mountain GOOGL, 3-month Boone thinks that Google's AI Overviews – a feature that offers a summary of answers to search questions at the top of Search – will reach 4 billion monthly users by the third quarter of this year, seeing that the feature will cover about two-thirds of queries by the next quarter. That would be up from 1.5 billion monthly users in the first quarter of this year. "With AI Overviews becoming generally available in the U.S. as of May and leading to 10% query growth in testing, we believe AI is a net tailwind," he continued. "Net/net, AI is growing the use of search at a faster rate than ChatGPT is taking share." The analyst also projects that Search revenue growth will accelerate in the second as a result of AI supporting query growth and the development of Google's ad products. Wall Street is mostly bullish on Alphabet, as 43 out of 55 analysts have issued strong buy or buy ratings on the stock. Its nearly $202 consensus target also reflects more than 16% upside from here.
