Britain’s competition authority on Wednesday announced a set of new conduct obligations that will apply to Google’s search services, aiming to give publishers more leverage over how their content is used in the company’s artificial intelligence systems.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said the measures, introduced under the digital markets competition regime, will let publishers opt out of having their content used to train Google’s AI models. The regulator framed the step as delivering "publishers more control and stronger bargaining power over the use of their content," while securing a fair deal for those organisations.
As part of the requirements, Google must also ensure that material from publishers, including news organisations, is properly attributed in AI-generated search results, with clear links back to the source. The CMA underlined attribution as a specific obligation tied to results produced by AI features in search.
The CMA highlighted its broader concern about Google’s scale in the UK search market, noting that the firm handles more than 90% of queries in the country. The regulator has been consulting on remedies intended to preserve effective competition in search services, and said the new obligations respond to that process.
Google did not immediately provide a comment in response to a request sent outside business hours.
"Google has recently announced changes to its search business and the requirements we’ve introduced today are designed to respond to what Google is doing now and in the future," CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said in a statement.
The CMA also placed the CMA action in the context of growing regulatory scrutiny of Google’s search operations worldwide. The regulator noted that Google’s search services have been subject to oversight efforts in multiple jurisdictions, including the United States and the European Union. The new UK requirements were presented as measures tailored to both Google’s current practices and anticipated future developments.
Officials said the interventions are intended to rebalance bargaining positions between a dominant search provider and content creators, particularly publishers and news outlets whose material feeds into search and AI outputs.
While the CMA outlined the obligations and their objectives, it did not set out additional implementation timelines or enforcement details in the announcement. The regulator said it had been consulting on competition concerns in search and that the measures were designed to be effective amid the changes Google is making to its search services.
Impacted sectors: technology (search engines and AI), media and publishing (news organisations), and digital advertising markets.