On Tue, Jul 7, 2026 at 4:26 PM Erik Moeller via Wikimedia-l < [email protected]> wrote:
> And, surprise surprise, those [Google AI] summaries do cost clicks. See > e.g. this > Pew study from a year ago: > > https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/ > > Google and other search engines have been continuously optimizing > those summaries since, so I would expect the effect size to increase > over time. I personally start many of my searches on g.ai (their more > robust AI Mode) directly; a lot of what we used to call "search" is > IMO headed that way. I was talking with a friend in the news business recently, and they said news sites are actively preparing for “Google Zero”, the day when Google Search sends them zero (or effectively zero, for revenue purposes) traffic. That’s why every quality news site is pushing subscriptions and social network video hard. “Google Zero” is a very, very predictable future for us as well.[1] A few months ago, before I had this useful and simple catchphrase, I urged some Foundation folks to orient their annual strategy process around the loss of 100% of search referral traffic, not 8% (as it was in the spring), or 20% (as it may be now), or whatever number it happens to be by the time we gather in Paris or Wikimania 2027. But I think now that was the wrong question. The right question is: what are *we* are going to do about Google Zero? This question is very explicitly not: *what is WMF going to do about Google Zero*. We can, should, must be more than WMF in this moment. If we’re reduced to just the capabilities and capacity of a single US non-profit of a few hundred people, we’re going to lose. To win (or even just to survive) we must be a very broad, innovative, not-afraid-to-fail movement that happens to contain a US 501(c)3. The good news, I think, is that we’re uniquely well-positioned to do that: - Open knowledge, aside from Wikipedia, has never been healthier (with arxiv, GH, etc.); - our APIs and data allow many experiments, as do those of our partners like Archive; - if we grow our editors through different channels, our mission can still be achieved even if we are no longer a top-10 website; - etc. I hope to see a lot of you around Wikimania to talk about this. Luis [1] Not necessarily the only future; we’re currently on the path of newspapers (near-total collapse) but it isn’t impossible to imagine curves like arxiv’s or reddit’s or github’s https://lu.is/2026/04/web-collaboration-five-graphs/
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