Google isn’t kidding around about cost cutting, even slashing its FT subscription

Google is ending its endeavor subscription to the Financial Times, and it’s not the lone endeavor media subscription connected the chopping block, sources say. The cuts bespeak broader cost-reduction efforts astatine the hunt giant, adjacent arsenic the institution reports beardown fiscal performance.

Google has been implementing outgo reductions crossed 2025, including eliminating 35% of managers who oversee teams of 3 radical oregon fewer, and offering voluntary exit programs crossed aggregate divisions since January. Finance main Anat Ashkenazi signaled precocious last twelvemonth that the institution would proceed to propulsion outgo cuts “a small further,” a mandate that appears unchanged contempt Alphabet reporting beardown Q2 2025 results with $96.4 cardinal successful revenue.

These cuts whitethorn prevention Google specified thousands; they besides travel arsenic Google faces progressively strained relationships with quality publishers. August data from the commercialized relation Digital Content Next showed median referral postulation from Google Search to publishers fell 10% betwixt May and June of this year, with non-news brands experiencing 14% drops.

Major outlets, including CNN, Business Insider, and HuffPost person reportedly seen adjacent sharper postulation declines (of 30%, 40%, and 40%, respectively), according to information from SimilarWeb.

Publishers property these declines mostly to Google’s AI Overviews feature, which has reduced click-throughs to outer websites from 56% to 69% since its launch, according to Pew Research. This spring, Pew analyzed information from 900 U.S. adults, six successful 10 of whom conducted astatine slightest 1 Google hunt successful March 2025 that produced an AI-generated summary.

Some mightiness adjacent spot Google canceling its FT subscription arsenic akin to a plagiarist refusing to bargain the textbook they’re copying from.

At a Fortune lawsuit earlier this month, the CEO of the largest integer and people steadfast successful the U.S. — Neil Vogel of People Inc. — didn’t clasp his punches, calling Google a “bad actor” and accusing it of utilizing the aforesaid bot to crawl websites for its hunt motor arsenic it does to enactment its AI features.

In a separate, scathing op-ed this summer, Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint wrote that Google’s AI overviews are creating a “zero-click” situation wherever “all postulation dormant ends astatine Google.”

Google did not respond to a petition for comment.