Google AI contribution pilot earns publishers one-tenth of 1% of ad revenues

Google’s AI contribution pilot seems well into its testing phase and we finally have more details on how many publishers are part of this pilot and how much they are earning. Reports claim there are about 100 publishers in this pilot making only a small fraction of what they would earn with their ad revenues; some say it is only one-tenth of 1% of their ad revenues.

More details. The Information reported saying:

• “For several small to midsize blogs and websites testing the programs, the payments amount to less than one-tenth of 1% of their advertising revenue, according to people familiar with the payouts.”
• “One publisher that joined a few months ago has earned about $50,000 to $60,000 so far, which doesn’t represent that much of its business, the publisher said.”
• “Another that joined early on is earning more than $1 million a year, which represents a bigger slice of its revenue, according to people familiar with the program.”
• “Smaller sites have earned less than $1,000 over several months, according to those people.”

So it seems like most are not earning all that much from this AI contribution pilot.

How are payments decided. Publishers are not clear on how Google decides on how much to pay them. Some publishers told The Information that they have no idea how Google calculates these payouts.

Google supposedly pays publishers based on how much each source contributes to an AI answer – such as what Google cites in an AI Overview, in AI Mode or in Gemini. One month a publisher may make one amount, and the next month a completely different amount, but Google doesn’t tell them the reasoning for the different payments.

Is it based on how often the AI answer shows their content- impression-based, click-based, or the percentage of AI content using its content? We don’t know.

More on the AI contribution pilot. As we previously covered, Google is running a pilot where it is paying some publishers for using their content within its AI features such as AI Mode, AI Overviews and Gemini. This is called AI Contribution and is a Search Console feature offered to a limited number of publishers while Google tests it.

Why we care. We all hope Google is able to expand a program like this to all publishers and that the payments made are fair and enable publishers to keep their publications open. But it is too soon to tell if this AI Contribution pilot will do just that.

I guess time will tell.