Google's Sundar Pichai Doesn't Think Web Publishing Is Dead
Search Engine Roundtable
The Verge's Decoder podcast with Nilay Patel, after Google I/O 2025
“I would challenge, I think more than any other company, we think about, we prioritize sending traffic to the web. No one sends traffic to the web in the way we do.”
Sundar Pichaireported 28 May 2025- What you'll lose3/5
Publishers' traffic, per their complaints.
- Condescension3/5
'I would challenge' the publishers.
- Tone-deafness3/5
Said to the editor of a website he was told would not be started today.
- Doom0/5
None.
- Hypocrisy2/5
Prioritizes sending traffic, he says, while AI Overviews answer on Google's own page.
Full time11 pitchforksof a possible 25
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The occasion
The Verge's Decoder podcast with Nilay Patel, after Google I/O 2025, reported 28 May 2025.
Context
Patel pressed Pichai on publishers' complaints about AI Overviews and AI Mode and said he would not start The Verge as a website today. Pichai replied that he was not sure he agreed, said web pages crawled by Google were up 45% in two years, and expected AI Mode to keep sending people to a broad range of sites.
Crowd reaction
Critical commentary
PPC Land says Pichai's claim 'directly contradict[s] multiple independent studies documenting substantial traffic declines' (it cites falls of 34.5% to 54.6% in click-through when AI summaries appear), and that the interview 'revealed apparent disconnection between Google's executive leadership and publisher experiences'. Patel opened the interview by noting a 'furious' statement from the News Media Alliance against AI Mode (seen in search summaries, not read on a page). This is the second Pichai occasion on this theme; the 2024 Verge interview is already in the dataset.