Publishers will be able to opt out of AI Search, thanks to new regulation

Key points

• The U.K. has just imposed legal guardrails on Google’s AI search onslaught.
• On Wednesday, Google announced compliance with the U.K.’s regulatory requirements, which state that the tech giant must offer publishers a way to opt out of being aggregated into AI search.
• To opt out, publishers will be able to use a new toggle in Google’s Search Console, a free service that allows website owners to manage their web presence in Google’s search results.
• Once opted out, the publisher’s site will not be shown in Google’s generative AI Search features, like AI Overviews, AI Mode, or AI Overviews in Discover.
• (Google, of course, makes a point to note in the same announcement that its AI Overviews now have over 2.5 billion monthly active users, and its AI Mode has surpassed one billion monthly users.) The tech giant says it will initially test the opt-out option with a subset of U.K....