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Google Discover’s Dive deeper shows an AI overview instead of the article
Publication date: 19.09.2026
In short
- Google Discover is testing a "Dive deeper" button that opens an AI overview of a topic instead of a publisher’s article.
- The overview is labeled as AI-generated, and Google admits it can make mistakes.
- Links to articles and community reactions sit below the overview, so the publisher’s site is reached one step later.
Google’s Robby Stein announced the test on X, saying the company is "experimenting with a new way to make exploring a topic and discovering related web content easier in Discover". Barry Schwartz described what it looks like in Search Engine Roundtable.
A short topic overview replaces the article
Until now a Discover card led straight to the publisher’s page. In the test, a "Dive deeper" option appears under it, and tapping it opens a compact AI overview of the topic, labeled as generated with AI. Google warns up front that such overviews can make mistakes. Below the overview a selection expands: links to the articles the topic was built from, plus community reactions. The click to a publisher’s site becomes the second step instead of the first.
| Before | In the test | |
|---|---|---|
| Tap on a card | publisher’s article | AI topic overview |
| Reaching the site | immediately | via links under the overview |
| Also on screen | card only | community reactions |
Google is trying it on videos first and, judging by the description, will widen it later. Several design variations are promised in the coming weeks.
What happens to traffic from recommendations
Schwartz doubts publishers will benefit: if the overview paints a complete picture, readers have little reason to visit the original. It is the same logic we have seen with AI answers in regular search, now reaching a feed where people used to choose what to open themselves. How AI overviews change click-through on results is covered in the guide to AI Overviews.
For Ukrainian news sites and blogs, Discover often supplies a noticeable share of visits, and the feed follows its own display rules, which we covered in the piece on optimizing for Google Discover. While the test hasn’t reached a wide audience, it makes sense to add a separate line to your reporting: Discover impressions and CTR in Search Console, broken down by day. If impressions hold while CTR sags, that is the first sign the feature has reached your audience. Google hasn’t said whether the test runs in Ukraine.
There is one more thing that makes this test sensitive for publishers. Discover is a feed with no search query: nobody searched for anything, Google simply suggests topics. Before, a publisher earned the click just because its headline and picture were more interesting than the neighbors’. Now an intermediary stands between the card and the article, retelling the topic in its own words and pushing the source lower. Google keeps the links, and the announcement itself talks about "related web content". But the order of clicks has changed, and probably the number of people who reach the article with it.
The announcement doesn’t say which articles make it into the selection under the overview or how they are chosen. That decides whether a place in that selection becomes a new optimization target, the way the featured snippet box once did. For now it is an open question, so any advice on "how to get into Dive deeper" would be invented at this stage.
It will be interesting to see whether Google ever publishes click-through numbers from "Dive deeper" to publishers’ sites, since that is the figure missing for any real assessment.
