A few weeks ago, we reported that Google was exploring ways to allow sites to opt out of showing up in Google's AI features, like AI Mode and AI Overviews. Google’s Sulina Connal said at the FT Strategies News in the Digital Age conference that this is a "huge engineering project."
Sulina Connal is Managing Director, News and Books Partnerships, EMEA at Google.
The Press Gazette reported what she said at the event:
We’ve heard the need for more controls and we’ve heard that pretty consistently, controls on how news content appears on search, and we have a set of proposals from the authority in the UK.What I can tell you at this stage is that we’re exploring more granular controls. Because AI is integral to how search works, implementing the new controls is a complex engineering, huge engineering project, and we have been highly intentional in our approach. The idea is to focus on simple, scalable tools that you can use to manage your content.
We also understand that to allow you to make informed decisions about search AI features you need more information, and measuring users’ engagement is key to that. We hear you, and we hear you loud and clear.
The issue is Google wants to make sure the controls do not impact Google core search features and just work to block it from being used for AI search features.
Also, at that event, Arun Venkataraman, who leads Google’s global industry research partnerships with the news ecosystem, told a separate event in London hosted by Beehiiv on Thursday that “overall traffic referrals from search have actually not decreased based off of our internal data. “But what is happening is the sources that that traffic referral is going to are more disparate.” “But what actually might be happening is it’s because some of that traffic is now going to emerging news sources that might be more relevant in certain contexts.”
In addition, after speaking about Preferred Sources, Connal also explained an upcoming Gemini app feature where it will "prioritize and highlight links to publishers with which a user has a subscription. This is expected to later roll out to AI Overviews and AI Mode."… pic.twitter.com/7kbOC2nx6N
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) February 16, 2026
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