News publishers will not be happy to learn that AI Overviews seem to be ranking for breaking news more and more. I noticed this several times recently and shared about it on X yesterday. When the AIO shows up, Top Stories are pushed down, which is a key way that news publishers drive traffic for those stories.
Here is what I shared on X:
Focus on news SEO? -> AI Overviews are now triggering for breaking news more often... When that happens, Top Stories drops below the AIO. Not good for news publishers covering those stories. See below. pic.twitter.com/m7vwsj5aBE
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) March 19, 2026
And here are the two screenshots of what I shared.
News publishers shielded in the past for breaking news:
In the past, news publishers were somewhat shielded for breaking news... Top Stories would rank at the top of the SERP and AIOs were typically not showing up. Then as time went on after the news broke, AIOs would start to show for queries related to those stories (but again, that was not right away.)
In addition, Google itself even said last May at a news event that "AI Overviews are purposefully not triggered for hard news queries." That quote was from Google's vice president of news partnerships Jaffer Zaidi at the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress 2025.
Here is my tweet about that from May of 2025:
Yep, yep, and yep -> Google AI Overviews leads to dramatic reduction in click-through for Mail Online. Also, Google explains AIOs don't trigger for hard news queries (yet), and Carly also warns about AI Mode eating clicks
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 14, 2025
"She said: “On desktop, when we are ranking number one in… pic.twitter.com/xLF7wcO0zT
Anyway, if you are a news publisher, be aware that AIOs are starting to show up more for breaking news. I would track this heavily for your key topics and see how much that is happening (and how much it has increased).
GG
