Google is not a joke about cutting costs, even its FT subscription cutting | Techcrunch

Google ends its enterprise subscription to the Financial Times, and it is not the only Enterprise Media subscription to the chopping block, sources say. The cutbacks reflect broader cost reduction efforts at the search giant, even if the company reports strong financial performance.

Google implemented cost reductions in 2025, including eliminating 35% of managers They supervise teams of three people or less, and offering voluntary exit programs in multiple divisions since January. Financial head Anat Ashkenazi has indicated late last year That the company would continue to push the cost savings “a little further”, a mandate that seems unchanged despite alphabet that strong Q2 2025 results reports by $ 96.4 billion in income.

These cuts can only save Google thousands; They also come when Google is confronted with more and more tense relationships with news publishers. Data from Augustus From the Digital Content of the Trade Association then showed average referral traffic from Google Search to Uitgevers fell by 10% between May and June of this year, with non-dins brands with 14% drops.

Large points of sale, including CNN, Business Insider and Huffpost, have reportedly taken even sharper traffic (from 30%, 40%and 40%respectively), according to data from comparable web.

Publishers largely attribute these to the AI ​​overview function of Google, which has reduced the click-throughs to external websites from 56% to 69% since the launch, according to Pew Research. This spring, PEW analyzed data from 900 American adults, six in ten in March 2025 performed at least one Google search that produced a summary of the AI-generated.

Some may even see Google Canceling his FT subscription as related to a plagiarism that refuses to buy the textbook they copy.

During a Fortune event earlier this month, the CEO held the largest digital and printed publisher in the US – Neil Vogel from People Inc. – His punches did not stuck, Google called a “bad actor” and accused the use of the same bone to crawl websites for his search engine for the search engine as to support the AI ​​functions.

In a separate, destructive op-ed this summer, Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint wrote that the AI ​​overviews of Google create a “zero-click” environment where “All traffic ends on Google. “

Google did not respond to a request for comment.