Summarised by Centrist
A recent study by Merja Myllylahti from Auckland University of Technology details the growing concern over AI-powered search tools and their effect on New Zealand news visibility and reliability.
AI chatbots like Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot often return false, misleading, or partially correct information, raising questions about their impact on news quality.
Despite these concerns, the New Zealand government has decided not to address AI in its revised Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill. The bill, aimed at making Google and Meta pay for news content, might be expanded to include AI companies like Microsoft and OpenAI.
The study shows that AI-driven search results are increasingly linking to non-news sources and old stories, reducing news diversity. Furthermore, Google announced its search engine will feature more AI-generated answers instead of website links, providing detailed responses and snapshot summaries without citing sources.
This shift could allow Google and others to avoid paying news companies for content, affecting the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill. However, some AI providers are already compensating news companies for using their content to train chatbots, which may improve search results.
“How this all plays out will have consequences for democracy as much as for media revenues,” writes Myllylahti
