Google puts AI summaries in Discover feed – and tests ways around the source links

What this is about

Google is bringing its AI-generated summaries, known as AI Overviews, to another part of its products: the Discover feed. This is the personalized news stream in the Google app. It shows stories from various outlets and adapts to your search behavior. Google confirmed to TechCrunch that the feature is rolling out in the app for iOS and Android. TechCrunch spotted the change first, and Mashable found a few examples while testing the iOS app.

What the overviews look like in Discover

According to Mashable, the AI Overviews summarize a story that several outlets have covered. You can tell by the publishers' logos at the top left of the module. Tap them, and a list of the individual articles opens. A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch the launch is happening in the US and focuses on lifestyle topics such as sports and entertainment. Mashable's examples, however, were hard news, such as the BBC documentary on the war in Gaza and the Senate confirmation of Mike Waltz as UN ambassador. Google did not initially respond when asked which topics will actually be summarized.

"Dive deeper": a summary instead of the article

In September, Android Authority reported on a test called "Dive deeper". The button doesn't take you to the publisher's article or video. Instead, it leads to a short AI summary, similar to Search. It also includes links to related stories, community reactions and original reports. Google is testing it with videos first, with more designs and content types to follow in the coming weeks. Android Authority warns from the publishers' perspective: users might settle for the summary, and an incomplete or faulty summary could give a skewed picture. It also adds an extra step before you reach the source.

The source-link bug

On October 23, Damien Andell, who researches Google Discover, reported an experiment that disabled clicks on the sources under AI summaries. He found it through a flag called "disable_aio_sources_button_tap". Normally, tapping the source icons opens a feed of articles from those sources. His screenshots showed a Fox 9 video from YouTube with a short summary and a row of source icons.

Lily Ray shared the report, and Rajan Patel, Google's VP of Engineering for Search, replied on Monday evening, according to Search Engine Journal:

That was a bug in a Discover experiment. We have turned the experiment off, and the feature is working as intended again.

On October 27, Andell noticed that the experiment had been removed and replaced with another one called "aio tap falls through to hero". What the new experiment does and where it runs is unclear. Per the sources, both statements can be true at once: Google says everything works as intended, while Andell reports a replacement.

What remains unclear

According to ALM Corp and Search Engine Journal, it's unknown what the original experiment was meant to test, how long it ran and how many users saw it. Publishers should look at the "Discover Generative AI" report in Search Console. According to its help page, it shows only impressions, meaning how often links to your site were shown through generative AI in Discover, but not taps on sources. So the bug can't be proven there. Publishers can only check for themselves whether tapping the sources opens the article feed, and that only applies to their own account at that moment.

Context

AI summaries moved from the search page to "Related questions" and now to Discover. At I/O 2025, Google said AI Overviews reach more than 1.5 billion people a month. At the same time, according to Mashable, outlets including the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg report sharply falling organic search traffic. A 2025 SimilarWeb analysis cites a 26 percent decline since AI Overviews launched. Google downplays such reports. For readers, Discover with summaries is more convenient. For publishers it's riskier, because Discover is an important traffic source for many. It remains to be seen whether Google sticks to lifestyle topics, how click numbers develop and what the replacement experiment does. Actual traffic losses from the source-link bug are not documented.