But only for those who sign special contracts with Google
Google plans to enter into more targeted deals with news publishers, according to Sulina Connal, the company's Managing Director of News and Book Partnerships in Europe. Speaking at the FT Strategies News in the Digital Age conference in London on February 11, 2026, she confirmed that the company is already actively negotiating with publishers and adjusting its products based on their feedback.
Among the latest participants in Google's pilot project for AI use is the Financial Times. Earlier, The Guardian and The Washington Post joined similar agreements. The contracts involve monetary payments to publishers, expanded rights for content display, and new methods of content delivery, such as via API.
Connal emphasized that Google is exploring the possibility of allowing news publishers to exclude their content from AI Overviews summaries without harming their positions in search results. According to her, implementing this feature is a large-scale engineering project, as AI is deeply integrated into the search engine's operation.
The company also intends to provide publishers with detailed metrics on user interaction with their materials in AI Overviews, including click data. This requirement was put forward by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), and Google responded to it promptly.
Among other innovations is the Preferred Sources feature, launched last summer in the US and rolled out to all English-language users in December. It allows readers to choose trusted news sources that will appear more frequently in the Top Stories block. Furthermore, a feature will appear in the Gemini app that highlights links to publications to which the user has a subscription. Later, this option may be implemented in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
According to Connal, many updates are the result of direct dialogue with publishers, who have expressed concerns about user trust, content attribution, and the role of quality journalism in the AI era.
Financial Times CEO Jon Slade welcomed Google's steps towards the industry. He noted that the partnership aims to rethink the dynamics of the relationship between technology and journalism: instead of incentivizing clickbait and copies, the system should reward original investigations and thorough fact-checking. Slade emphasized that fair compensation for content will ensure a reliable and accurate information environment for consumers and help solidify the value of professional journalism in the age of artificial intelligence.