All posts tagged: Overviews

Google moves Top Stories box to AI Overviews almost 20% of time

Google moves Top Stories box to AI Overviews almost 20% of time

Published by Sam Flores

Top Stories carousel in AI Overview result for ‘burnham social care’ search in the UK on 30 July 2026 Google has begun giving publishers a prominent “Top Stories” plug above many news-based queries which generate an AI Overview summary. While the move could lead to more referral traffic for publishers, they could lose the opportunity to feature in these snippets if they opt out of allowing their content to be used in AI Overviews. The move is also a sign that AI Overviews are increasingly being deployed by Google to summarise breaking news, an area which had previously been more protected from the disruptive influence of AI-written Google answers. Entertainment is the category of news most likely to generate a Top Stories box within Google AI Overviews, according to analysis from Newzdash. Google began to roll out placing a Top Stories carousel of news website links within the AI summary at the top of search results from June. When this appears, it is instead of – rather than additional to – the classic Top Stories …

‘Travesty’ if publishers don’t take up chance to opt out of Google AI Overviews

‘Travesty’ if publishers don’t take up chance to opt out of Google AI Overviews

Published by Sam Flores

Panel at Press Gazette’s AI Summit on 30 June 2026. From left to right: Lord Ed Vaizey, Prorata senior strategy adviser Eugene Huang, Owen Meredith, managing director of public policy at Daily Mail, and Josh Muncke, VP of generative AI at The Economist. Picture: Press Gazette Publishers have been urged to experiment with AI controls in the aftermath of the UK competition watchdog’s new rules for Google. Senior publishing leaders were told it would be a “travesty” if none of them made the most of the ability to opt out of their content appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode, as prompted by the Competition and Markets Authority’s publisher conduct requirements for Google search. Former Conservative culture minister Lord Ed Vaizey, Prorata senior strategy adviser Eugene Huang, The Economist’s VP of generative AI Josh Muncke and Owen Meredith, managing director of public policy at Daily Mail, spoke about what publishers should do next on a panel at Press Gazette’s AI Summit in London last week. The CMA told Google to give publishers control over how …

Google AI Overviews give ‘incredibly worrying’ prominence to suicide method

Google AI Overviews give ‘incredibly worrying’ prominence to suicide method

Published by Sam Flores

Google AI Overview on 2 July about death of Paul Flack, with method of suicide redacted by Press Gazette Google queries about the death of former Love Island presenter Caroline Flack’s brother this week have prominently displayed details about his suicide in AI summaries at the top of search results pages. Paul Flack died aged 55 after being found unresponsive at his home, six years after his sister took her own life. Google searches for “Caroline Flack brother” over the past two days have resulted in his method of suicide being displayed in the first section of the AI Overview, at the very top of the page. This is in breach of reporting guidelines by mental health charities Samaritans and Mind, which are also included in the UK Editors’ Code. The issue was first spotted by Reach SEO and Discover director Nicola Agius who said that on Tuesday night, after seeing an Instagram post stating that the brother of former Love Island presenter Caroline Flack had died, she searched for “Caroline Flack brother” on Google …

A German Court Has Ruled That Google Is Liable for False Statements Generated by AI Overviews

A German Court Has Ruled That Google Is Liable for False Statements Generated by AI Overviews

Published by skeptic

A local court in Germany has issued a ruling that could reshape the operation of search engines and artificial-intelligence-based chatbots worldwide. The Munich Regional Court preliminarily ruled that Google is liable for a series of false statements generated by its AI Overviews feature, requiring the company to prevent the dissemination of erroneous or inaccurate claims through its search engine. The ruling stems from a case first reported by the Decoder, in which two publishers discovered that Google’s AI-generated summaries linked them, in certain searches, to questionable business practices, scams, and subscription-related frauds, without any basis for doing so. Earlier this year, the affected companies sent the tech giant a cease-and-desist letter, according to the report. Google denied liability, arguing that its automatic summary feature warns users that the information may contain errors and should be independently verified. The court’s analysis concluded that Google’s AI combined information corresponding to other companies that had been flagged for possible illicit practices with data from the plaintiffs, generating associations that did not appear in any of the sources linked …

I changed how I prompt NotebookLM and my audio overviews immediately sounded more interesting

I changed how I prompt NotebookLM and my audio overviews immediately sounded more interesting

Published by skeptic

I’ve been tempted to subscribe to book summarization apps like BeFreed. They turn nonfiction into byte-sized audiobooks and make learning on the go easier. Taking that idea further, I thought about “duplicating” that utility by prompting NotebookLM’s Audio Overview more intentionally. I tested this on a specific NotebookLM book that compiles research on how intentional noticing combats emotional numbness. I didn’t go with the default Audio Overview; instead, I dove into its Customize field under the hood. It’s not a spoiler to say that I got better results. Related I’ve been using NotebookLM’s Audio Overview wrong — this is what it’s actually good for You’ve been selling Audio Overviews short this whole time. The default overview is a missed opportunity Give your podcast a detailed brief Saikat Basu/MakeUseOf NotebookLM’s Audio Overview generates a podcast-styled summary of your sources without your intervention. The default output has a host chatting in a breezy style. Think of this as a rough cut, which gives you reasonable coverage of your sources. The customization field is one of NotebookLM’s settings …

Tired of AI Overviews? I found 9 Google Search alternatives that showed me links again

Tired of AI Overviews? I found 9 Google Search alternatives that showed me links again

Published by skeptic

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways Google alternatives with little to no AI still exist. Startpage and DuckDuckGo are the top options. Mojeek is best for an independent search index. I’m not the biggest AI critic in the world, but even I’ll admit it: I don’t always want Google summarizing the internet for me. Honestly, I wish I could turn off AI Overviews. I also don’t want to be nudged into AI Mode with every query. Sometimes, I just want to type a few words, get a wall of blue links, and decide what to open myself. Yes, I know there are ways to make Google feel a little more like old Google, but they’re clunky. And, sure, I could switch to a different search engine, but that’s weird, right? Also: Google’s new AI Search box is here – along with agents and 5 more upgrades I’ve been Googling for 20 years. Still, it got me wondering: Are Google’s competitors going all in on …

Google update set to move users from AI Overviews to AI Mode

Google update set to move users from AI Overviews to AI Mode

Published by Sam Flores

User entering conversational query into Google Search bar and taken to AI Mode. Pictures: Google Google’s new AI features for Search signal a further shift away from publisher traffic despite the tools not yet being the default for users, according to SEO experts. The update includes users having the choice to continue searching in AI Mode through follow-up prompts from AI Overviews. The changes, initially revealed in January before further details came out this month, could escalate fears for publishers already seeing reduced clickthroughs from Google Search. Many have been impacted by the rollout of Google’s AI Overviews: summaries generated from publishers and other websites that give several sentences in response to a query rather than just a headline and a snippet. AI Mode, which was made available to all US users in May 2025 before expanding to the UK in July, goes further by generating longer, detailed answers that reduce the need to click through to external sites. Announcing Google AI’s update in January, Robby Stein, vice president of product at Google Search, said: “First, we’re …

How AI overviews are killing publisher traffic by topic data

How AI overviews are killing publisher traffic by topic data

Published by Sam Flores

Google AI Overviews result for ‘hantavirus symptoms’ query. Below the AIO and first result there is a Top Stories box including articles from the BBC, CNN and The Independent Health is the topic vertical most vulnerable to losing clicks as a result of Google’s AI Overviews, according to new Sistrix data shared with Press Gazette. Looking at data from three months at the start of 2026, Sistrix estimates that health sections on major news brands will have seen links to articles supplanted by an AI-written summary 72% of the time in Google search results. Sistrix has found that for keywords where an AI Overview appears at the top of Google’s search results, the average rate of people clicking on the first search result drops from 27% to 11%, meaning a clickthrough decline of almost 60%. Healthline was the fastest-falling major news website in the UK in March, losing 48% of its audience year on year according to Ipsos iris. The second most heavily-affected vertical was tech (where AI overviews appear 47% of the time) followed …

TikTok’s AI Overviews Probably Thinks This Story Is a Blueberry

TikTok’s AI Overviews Probably Thinks This Story Is a Blueberry

Published by skeptic

TikTok‘s AI Overviews is singing the blues. The feature, which was in testing, was supposed to generate text summaries beneath video posts on the app. But due to numerous egregious inaccuracies in the AI-generated descriptions — including one mistaking a celebrity content creator for blueberries — TikTok has scaled back the test. A TikTok spokesperson told Business Insider that the updated feature will now only identify products shown in a video, not offer the sometimes-bizarre summaries. A TikTok representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. TikTok’s AI Overviews feature was similar to the AI summaries Google uses in its search algorithm. It was supposed to explain what’s happening in video posts and provide additional context. It succeeded only some of the time.  The Business Insider reporter documented firsthand experience with TikTok’s AI Overviews, citing a collection of incorrect summaries. The feature described a video of TikTok personality Charli D’Amelio talking to the camera as “a collection of various blueberries with different toppings.” And it called a video from the singer Shakira “a repetitive sequence …

NotebookLM’s audio overviews turned my research paper backlog into actually useful summaries

NotebookLM’s audio overviews turned my research paper backlog into actually useful summaries

Published by skeptic

When you’re in academia, reading research papers is part of everyday life — at least it is supposed to be. You may be working on a paper or thesis and want to do a thorough literature review. Or you may just want to catch up with your area of interest. These scholarly works are written for specialists, with dense language that makes regular reading a challenge even when the topic is familiar. Yet, there’s a bigger, more common problem. Related I hooked Obsidian to a local LLM and it beats NotebookLM at its own game My notes now talk back and it’s terrifyingly useful. I was saving papers more than I was understanding them My “read later” system was doing all the reading I’m sure most people working in academia have either a messy Google Drive folder with hundreds of papers or a Zotero library that feels vaguely familiar after a few months. Every time you come across something you think you love, you download the paper or add it to Zotero or Mendeley. But …