The short version: Google must now let UK publishers and businesses choose whether their website content is used in AI Overviews and AI Mode — without penalising them in traditional search rankings for opting out. If you rely on Google traffic for enquiries and leads, this ruling is directly relevant to your business.

What the CMA ordered

On 3 June 2026, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority issued a formal conduct requirement to Google under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2025. The CMA had designated Google as holding "strategic market status" in general search — a designation that allows it to impose binding obligations without the full weight of a competition investigation.

The requirement covers three specific areas:

  • AI Overviews and AI Mode opt-out: Publishers and website owners must be able to opt their content out of use in Google's AI-generated search summaries, without that opt-out affecting their position in traditional, link-based search results.
  • AI model fine-tuning opt-out: Businesses must be able to prevent Google from using their content to train or fine-tune AI models.
  • Attribution in AI results: When Google's AI features surface content from a business's website, that content must be clearly attributed with a link back to the source.

The CMA described the ruling as a "world first" — the first time any regulator has imposed binding controls over how a major AI-powered search engine uses publisher and business content. Google told the CMA it expected to begin implementing aspects of the new controls in June 2026.

Why this matters to a UK small business

Google's AI Overviews — the AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of many search results pages — have significantly changed how users engage with search. When a user's question is answered directly in an AI Overview, they frequently do not click through to the underlying website. For service businesses that depend on search traffic to generate enquiries, this reduces the value of organic rankings that may have taken years to build.

The CMA ruling creates a genuine choice. Opting in means your content may be used in AI summaries, which could surface your business name but may reduce direct clicks to your site. Opting out preserves your traditional search position and ensures your content is not used in AI training, but keeps you out of AI-generated answers.

There is no universally correct answer — it depends on whether AI Overviews currently help or hurt your specific search traffic. But the question is now yours to answer, rather than Google's to decide on your behalf.

What to do now

  • Check your Google Search Console for traffic patterns from searches where AI Overviews currently appear — this will tell you whether AI summaries are already affecting your click-through rates.
  • Monitor Google's implementation of the opt-out controls in June 2026. Google's Search Console is the most likely interface for these settings.
  • If you use structured data markup (FAQ schema, how-to schema, review schema), review whether it is making your content more or less likely to be extracted into AI summaries — structured data often increases AI extraction.

Operator move for this week

Open Google Search Console for your business and look at the queries where your site currently appears in position 1-3. Check whether those same queries trigger AI Overviews when you search them manually. If they do, you have a decision to make once Google's opt-out controls go live in June — and you want to have made it with data, not in a hurry.