Google tests pilot that pays publishers when their content appears in AI results

Through a new “AI contribution pilot,” Google is testing directly paying websites and publishers when their content is used to flesh out AI Overviews and other AI results.

As AI has taken over the Google Search experience, the impact on the web hasn’t been quiet. Google insists that AI isn’t to blame, but repeated reports clearly show otherwise. Google’s AI, along with the myriad of other AI services being used, just aren’t distributing traffic to the web in the way traditional search used to, and everyone is suffering as a result.

The solution isn’t an easy one, but one idea that pops up pretty frequently is pushing AI providers, including Google, to directly pay websites and publishers when their content is used as the source of an AI result, replacing the revenue lost by direct traffic.

Google is now testing exactly that.

Digiday detailed this week a new “AI contribution pilot” Google is running with “at least dozens of publishers.” The program is apparently mainly being tested with “small and mid-sized” publishers and is covering a scope “far beyond news publishers.” A panel in Google Search Console includes a payout figure, with Google’s page explaining:

Accumulate earnings when your content contributes significantly to AI-generated responses in participating products.

Digiday spoke with publishers in the pilot who said that information provided is “basic,” with one explaining that they’re “hopeful that the fact that [Google is] setting a precedent for exploring paying publishers directly for content through this is meaningful.”

A support page hidden from the general public includes more details on the pilot program:

Google had teased these efforts publicly in June 2026, explaining that the company was “piloting a new way to partner with websites whose content meaningfully contributes to the freshness and factuality of generative AI responses.” In late 2025, Google announced a “commercial partnership program” with several major news publishers, but this latest effort is far wider in scope.