Google changes priorities in the Discover platform

Google changes priorities on the Discover platform ## AI summaries, social media posts, and YouTube videos come to the fore

Google is actively changing the principles of its mobile aggregation platform Discover. Now, AI summaries, social media posts, and YouTube videos are appearing more and more often in the feed, to the detriment of traditional news publications. These changes threaten publishers who are accustomed to receiving a significant portion of their referral traffic through Discover.

This trend coincides with a global decline in traffic to media sites from Google search engines and the Discover platform itself. Last year, Discover provided two-thirds of Google traffic for leading media outlets in the UK and US. For many editorial offices, it was the main channel for attracting readers. However, the nature of the platform is now changing significantly.

According to analytics company Marfeel, in the US, Brazil, and Mexico, more than half of the content in the Discover feed consists of AI summaries. Their key task is to redirect users to YouTube videos. Statistics show that in 77% of cases, readers go directly to YouTube, bypassing the original source sites. At the same time, the further the user scrolls through the feed, the more AI summaries there are: after the 20th position, they account for over 80% of the content. Google says it wants to make Discover more user-friendly, so that it is easier for users to find content that interests them and interact with authors. The company emphasizes that it prioritizes "useful and reliable content created for people." At the same time, Discover does not impose strict requirements on sources: unlike Google News, the platform is not limited to official news sites.

This freedom has led to problems. Recently, fake news from fraudulent sources has been spreading in the Discover feed, collecting tens of millions of clicks. Google has acknowledged the problem and said it is working on a solution. Analysts note that the US, Brazil, and Mexico have become test markets for a global rethinking of Discover. Apparently, the company is gradually transforming the platform from a traffic distribution tool into a mechanism for retaining users within the Google ecosystem. Now the goal is not so much to direct readers to external resources as to engage them in consuming content on its own platforms, such as YouTube.