News/Media Alliance says Googles AI Mode is ‘theft’ [Video]

Is Google’s new AI Mode feature theft? The News/Media Alliance, trade association representing news media organizations in the U.S. and Canada, certainly thinks so.

At Google’s I/O showcase earlier this week, the tech company announced the public release of AI Mode in Google Search. AI Mode expands AI Overviews in search and signifies a pivot away from Google’s traditional search. Users will see a tab at the top of their Google Search page that takes them to a chatbot interface much like, say, ChatGPT, instead of your typical Google Search results.

These results offer users information without having to actually click on an article which, the News/Media Alliance argued in a press release, “further [deprives] publishers of original content both traffic and revenue.”

“Links were the last redeeming quality of search that gave publishers traffic and revenue. Now Google just takes content by force and uses it …