- Google ends FT subscription to reduce costs.
- AI Overviews lower click-throughs to publisher sites.
- Industry backlash intensifies over “zero-click” search trends.
Google is ending its enterprise subscription to the Financial Times, part of a wider effort to trim expenses despite reporting strong financial results. Sources indicate other corporate media subscriptions may also be on the chopping block as the tech giant pushes cost reductions across divisions.
Finance chief Anat Ashkenazi has emphasized ongoing efficiency measures, including eliminating 35% of managers overseeing small teams and offering voluntary exit programs since January. These steps reflect a broader corporate mandate to tighten budgets, even as Alphabet posted $96.4 billion in Q2 2025 revenue.
News publishers feel the pressure
The subscription cut comes amid growing tension between Google and news publishers. Data from Digital Content Next shows median referral traffic from Google Search to publishers fell 10% between May and June 2025, with non-news sites experiencing a 14% drop. Major outlets such as CNN, Business Insider, and HuffPost faced sharper declines of 30–40%, according to SimilarWeb.
Publishers largely attribute these drops to Google’s AI Overviews feature, which summarizes web content directly on search results pages. Pew Research reports click-through rates to external sites have fallen 56–69% since its introduction, contributing to what some industry leaders call a “zero-click” environment.
Industry backlash grows
Neil Vogel, CEO of People Inc., criticized Google at a recent Fortune event, labeling it a “bad actor” for using the same technology to crawl websites for both search and AI functions. Similarly, Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint called Google’s AI Overviews a threat to publisher traffic, arguing that the feature reduces visits to external sites, effectively monetizing content without proper compensation.
Also Read: Google Unveils AP2 to Enable Secure AI-Driven Purchases Across Platforms
Google’s cost-cutting measures signal a shift in corporate strategy, but they also underscore rising friction with media partners. As AI-driven tools reshape search behavior, publishers face mounting challenges in maintaining traffic and revenue, while Google continues to expand its technological footprint with minimal financial compromise.
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