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Introduction
Publishers are utilizing AI more than ever, as we explored in part 1 of this report, but it’s also the source of major challenges for the media industry.
AI-driven search is a big part of those challenges. As of October 2025, a full third of the 15 billion searches conducted on Google (or 5 million) triggered AI Overviews, Semrush president Eugene Levin told Digiday. At the same time, a significant percentage of publishers have said their traffic is decreasing.
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