The U.K.’s antitrust regulator has ordered Google LLC to give publishers more control over how their content appears in search results.

The Competition and Markets Authority, or CMA, announced the move today.

The order focuses on Google Search’s artificial intelligence features, particularly the AI Overviews panel that often appears above search results. The panel displays an AI-generated response to the user’s question. The CMA has instructed Google to let publishers prevent AI Overviews from using their content.

Website operators can block the feature without removing their content from search results. Moreover, it won’t affect publisher search rankings.

The opt-out setting covers AI Overviews panels in not only Google Search but also Discover, a customized content feed available on mobile devices. The toggle also applies to AI Mode. The latter feature, which rolled out last year, generates more detailed responses to Google Search queries than AI Overviews.

The opt-out setting is not the only product change that the company will implement. CMA has asked Google to cite publisher content using “properly attributed, using clear links” in AI-generated search results. Additionally, the Alphabet Inc. unit will have to give website operators a way to prevent their data from being used in AI fine-tuning projects. Fine-tuning is a process through which developers hone the capabilities of an AI model that has already been trained.

The CMA has given Google nine months to make the changes. Officials expect the company to implement several key modifications much sooner. After Google completes the initial rollout, it will have to submit periodic compliance reports to verify that it adheres to the CMA’s guidance.

The company disclosed in a blog post that it’s currently testing the AI opt-out setting with a limited number of U.K. website operators. It plans to roll out the feature globally over time. Additionally, Google intends to launch a dashboard that will enable publishers to track which of their webpages appear in AI search results and where the content is viewed. The company plans to add support for more metrics down the line.

Last year, the European Union launched an antitrust probe into Google over AI Overviews and AI Model. Officials expressed concern that the search giant didn’t provide a way for publishers to prevent the two features from using their content. The opt-out setting that Google previewed today may help it address the regulatory scrutiny.

Notably, the EU probe also encompasses YouTube. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, is scrutinizing Google’s use of creator videos in AI training projects.

The company’s changes to its search engine may prompt other AI providers to roll out more publisher controls. Two of the industry’s biggest names, OpenAI Group PBC and Anthropic PBC, already provide opt-out options for publishers. The companies enable website operators to block the scrapers they use to collect data for their chatbots. 

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