AI Search Sends Local News Questions to Official Sources, Not Local Papers

UK AI-visibility firm Searchable analyzed 30,000 prompts across 100 UK towns and cities, testing five AI tools, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Gemini, Google AI Mode, and Google AI Overviews, on local news-related questions, Press Gazette reported on October 22. The study collected 244,725 citations drawn from 10,000 unique websites.

ChatGPT directed 81.3% of local news questions to council or government sources, while only 0.9% went to local news outlets. For crime-related queries, police websites supplied 57.8% of answers and appeared in 95.9% of them.

Among ChatGPT's top 20 sources for local queries, only one local newspaper, Wales Online, appeared, ranking 18th. National newspapers were cited in 18.8% of local queries, not far off the 21.2% rate for local newspapers themselves.

ChatGPT's searches returned an average of 12.3 websites, but only about four of those informed the actual answer, the study found. Roughly one in seven searches pointed to a local news provider, while about one in three pointed to the council, police, or another official body.

Searchable CEO Chris Donnelly said, "At the moment, one in seven of those searches points to a local news provider, on average." He added, "For a regional title, AI is not yet making up for the search traffic publishers are losing."

Chartbeat data cited by the Reuters Institute showed Google search traffic to publishers fell by a third in 2025. Similarweb data showed AI referral traffic to news sites grew 770% in the year to June 2025, though the gains mainly benefited large global news brands.

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If you run a local business or local news outlet, it's worth recognizing that AI search tools are more likely to point users to government or official sources than to your own site when answering local questions. Publishing official announcements and press releases on your own site in a clearly structured format can slightly improve the odds that AI recognizes you as an authoritative source too.

Source: Press Gazette, October 22, 2026. Checked October 27, 2026. Read the original