What Top Stories Inside AI Overviews Means For Publishers And Brands In 2026 And Beyond
Google has begun embedding 'Top Stories' carousels directly into AI Overviews for a significant percentage of trending news queries. This change means publishers cannot opt out of this placement using standard robots.txt directives, marking a shift in how news is surfaced in AI-generated search results.
Why it matters
This shift impacts how news publishers gain traffic and visibility as search engines transition from traditional link lists to AI-generated answers.
Google now embeds Top Stories inside AI Overviews on 15.5% of U.S. trending news queries, and blocking Google-Extended won't remove publishers from it.
VIP CONTRIBUTOR Greg Jarboe 6 hours ago ⋅ 7 min read VIP CONTRIBUTOR Greg Jarboe President and co-founder at SEO-PR Bio Follow John Shehata, CEO of NewzDash, found something in July that a lot of publishers threatening to block Google's AI don't realize is already happening underneath them. Google has started folding entire Top Stories carousels directly inside AI Overviews , and the robots.txt directive most publishers reach for first does nothing to stop it.
Shehata posted on LinkedIn that nearly one in six U.S. trending news queries now place Top Stories inside AI Overviews, and followed it with a full data breakdown on the NewzDash SEO for News blog .
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in