#ai-summaries

#ai-summaries

If trends continue, Google's ecosystem may evolve as follows: 1. Topic clusters go mainstream. To cut LLM-generated clutter, expensive features like topic clustering, once restricted to niche products like Google News (since the 2010s), will go mainstream across Search, Gemini, Discover, and YouTube. Discover's mid-2025 AI summary cards already signaled this shift. Here's how topic clusters look on YouTube. 2. On Discover, YouTube, and Gemini, traffic will go to fewer, deeper stories on a topic.

While new Echo devices, Fire TVs, and Ring cameras captured most of the attention at Amazon's Devices & Services event this week, the company also unveiled a pair of upcoming Kindle devices -- the Scribe and the Scribe Colorsoft. (Check out ZDNET editor Nina Raemont's hands-on thoughts on both here). The new Kindles do mostly what you would expect from Amazon's e-reader, but a couple of AI-powered features in the announcement caught my eye.

The owner of Rolling Stone, Billboard and Variety sued Google on Friday, alleging the technology giant's AI summaries use its journalism without consent and reduce traffic to its websites. The lawsuit by Penske Media in federal court in Washington, D.C., marks the first time a major U.S. publisher has taken Alphabet-owned Google to court over the AI-generated summaries that now appear on top of its search results.

News companies face a substantial threat from AI summaries replacing search results, leading to up to 80% fewer clickthroughs as users find information directly without clicking through.

Users who encountered an AI summary clicked on a traditional search result link in 8% of all visits. Those who did not encounter an AI summary clicked on a search result nearly twice as often (15% of visits).