By Sarah ScireAndrew DeckBridget Thoreson
Publication Date: 2026-01-26 15:52:00
On Friday, The Verge’s Sean Hollister reported that Google is now calling AI-generated headlines in Discover a “feature,” not just an experiment.
For several months now, Google has been rewriting headlines and snippets of news articles in Discover’s personalized content feed using AI, instead of displaying the ones supplied by publishers.
In December, Google told The Verge this was “a small UI experiment for a subset of Discover users.” Now Google has reframed the update as a “feature” that “performs well for user satisfaction.”
In other words, AI headlines are likely here to stay. That’s despite the feature performing poorly for accuracy. AI-generated headlines in Discover sometimes state the opposite of what the news articles report and summaries routinely misrepresent information within those stories. There are currently no clear disclosures when AI is used to generate copy in the Discover feed.
In a statement, a Google spokesperson clarified to The Verge…