UK regulators will force Google to let publishers opt out of AI Search while requiring source links and new AI traffic analytics.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that publishers can opt out of Google’s generative AI search features, like AI Overviews and AI mode.
According to the regulatory body, content creators must be given the option to opt out of allowing Google to use their work to “fine-tune” its AI models. The regulator also forces Google to attribute content properly using clear links to the sources in all AI-generated answers. Google has about nine months to implement these controls under the compliance timeline. In terms of oversight, Google must submit detailed progress reports to the regulator every six months during the first year.
Just last month, in May 2026, Google held its annual I/O event, where the company launched radical updates to its search engine. The tech giant is replacing the traditional search bar we all know and love with an “intelligent” search box that dynamically expands. Users can drop files, images, and videos, or even attach open Google Chrome tabs to find complex answers.
Google also introduced a bunch of autonomous AI agents that run continuously in the background to monitor information on behalf of the user. Leadership also announced that Gemini 3.5 Flash now powers AI Mode to make conversational queries faster.
But there is a “negative” side to these features, at least for the publishers who lose massive amounts of website traffic because users get direct answers on the search page without clicking. Despite these issues, Google has bragged that AI Overviews now has over 2.5 billion monthly active users, while AI Mode has surpassed one billion monthly users.
In that same blog post, Google confirmed that it is “engaging with regulators” like the UK’s CMA, and is testing a new toggle in Search Console that lets publishers opt out of generative search features without losing their standard organic search rankings.
Google is also rolling out new insights for site owners through Search Console. These new analytics will show impression metrics and list the specific pages that appear in AI responses, while also tracking the country-level data. Publishers in the UK can test these controls first before a global release.
