Google's "AI Overview" (AI Mode) feature, which it introduced in many countries last year and made fully available in Türkiye as of March 7, 2026, has ignited a major debate in the media world.
Prof. Süleyman İrvan, Head of the Journalism Department, stating that internet traffic is expected to decrease by at least 50 percent after the widespread adoption of the Google AI application, said, “News sites were already barely standing. With the decline in advertising revenues, they might reach the point of closure. Google should pay royalties to media organizations.”
Prof. Süleyman İrvan, Head of the Journalism Department at Üsküdar University Faculty of Communication, evaluated Google's "AI Overview" (AI Mode) feature, which it introduced in many countries last year and made fully available in Türkiye as of March 7, 2026.
From search engine to content creator
Prof. İrvan stated that while Google has been working as a search engine redirecting users to relevant news sites until now, with the new application, it now summarizes and presents information itself. He said, “I used to define Google as the world’s largest media. Because the content of media organizations was largely distributed through Google, but now we see that the platform has moved from merely directing internet traffic to directly producing content.”
Prof. İrvan stated that Google has started using the original content and news produced by media organizations "for free."
The "zero-click" era
Prof. İrvan said that there is concern that traffic to news sites will significantly decrease because the Google AI application directly answers users' questions on the search page. He stated, “Research conducted in countries like the UK summarizes the effects this "zero-click" model will create as follows: 60 percent of users find the answer on the Google page and end their search without clicking on any other site. In the UK, the internet traffic growth rate has fallen from 26.3% to 3.7%.”
Digital journalism's revenue model is shaken
Prof. Süleyman İrvan stated that news sites in Türkiye have largely relied on a revenue model based on clicks and sharing Google ad revenues until now, and have not been able to establish a digital subscription-based revenue model like those in the USA and European countries. He emphasized that this revenue model will be fundamentally shaken and become unworkable in the new era.
Prof. İrvan stated that internet traffic is expected to decrease by at least 50 percent after the widespread adoption of the Google AI application, and that this situation will plunge journalism into a very serious crisis.
Stating, “News sites were already barely standing. With the decline in advertising revenues, they might reach the point of closure,” Prof. Süleyman İrvan said we should not forget the example of Duvar newspaper, which faced a crisis last year due to changes in Google’s algorithm.
Google should pay royalties to media organizations
Prof. Süleyman İrvan noted that to prevent journalism in Türkiye from entering an "extinction process," good examples from around the world should be examined, and listed the necessary steps as follows:
“Google AI's unauthorized and free use of news content must be prevented, and Google should pay royalties to media organizations. For this, Türkiye needs to sit down with Google as soon as possible. There are examples of this worldwide. Secondly, media organizations should switch to a paid subscription model to create a sustainable source of income. Of course, when they do this, they should abandon nonsense like SEO journalism and clickbait journalism and instead produce original and high-quality journalism.”
Official advertisement publication criteria should be reviewed
Prof. Süleyman İrvan stated that journalism professional organizations should play a more active role in this process, adding that the current structure is not sustainable as it is.
Prof. Süleyman İrvan said, “It would be beneficial for the Press Advertisement Institution (Basın İlan Kurumu), which has been supporting local news sites that meet the criteria with official advertisements since 2022, to revise its criteria taking this new development into account.” He argued that if this is not done, local news sites will quickly become unable to meet the criteria due to the expected decline in internet traffic.
