By Amanda Meade
Publication Date: 2026-01-24 19:00:00
Research from the University of Sydney has found Australian journalism is largely “invisible” in Microsoft Copilot’s AI-generated news summaries, which overwhelmingly favor US or European media.
About a fifth of responses to Copilot message prompts contain links to Australian media sources, according to researcher Dr. Timothy Koskie of the university’s Center for AI, Trust and Governance.
In his article “Invisible Journalists and Dominant Algorithms,” Koskie warns that the increasing use of these tools will almost certainly lead to more news deserts, fewer independent voices, and a weakened democracy. He calls for the development of policy mechanisms such as the News Media Bargaining Code to help journalism thrive.
According to surveys by the Reuters Institute, searching for information, including news, is now one of the most used functions of AI.
When users receive AI summaries without clicking through to the original news site, they starve news outlets of web traffic and revenue,…