Daily Mail blames Google AI Overviews for 15% digital advertising dip

Nathan Jolly

February 4, 2026 11:00

Daily Mail blames Google AI Overviews for 15% digital advertising dip

The Daily Mail globally has been hit hard by AI overviews in search (Mumbrella)

Digital advertising revenue fell by 15% across the Daily Mail’s publications last year, which the group is blaming on Google’s AI Overviews.

The Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) publishes the various Daily Mail mastheads (including the Australian version) plus UK tabloid Mail on Sunday, Metro and ‘i’ newspapers, and New Scientist.

In its financial results for the year to 30 September 2025, published overnight, DMGT reported a modest 2% drop in overall consumer media revenue to £600m (A$1.17b). This was buoyed by a 10% rise in subscription revenue to £133.6m (A$260.7m) but dragged down by the 15% digital advertising fall, to £148.3m (A$289.4m).

The drop in digital advertising revenue was credited to “website traffic being adversely affected by the introduction of AI overviews by search engine providers, resulting in fewer users clicking through to news websites.”

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The group’s print advertising revenues dropped by 3% to £103m (A$201m), which DMGT called “a relatively resilient performance given the [1%] decline in circulation volumes.”

Australian figures were not broken out in the group’s financial reporting.

The Daily Mail Australia’s digital audience fell by 9% year-on-year for the month of December 2025, according to Ipsos Iris figures, with monthly readership sitting at over 7m. For the same month, the Daily Mail UK’s digital audience fell by 14% year-on-year, with 18.1m monthly site visitors.

The Daily Mail introduced its Mail+ paid premium subscription in January 2024 in the UK, and launched a similar partial paywall model in Australia in October that same year.

While it hasn’t broken out its subscription numbers by publication, the Daily Mail announced in June a goal to triple its digital subscribers to one million by October 2028, suggesting numbers sat around the 330,000 mark midway through last year.

Consumer media revenue now makes up just 55% of the Group’s total revenue, with its various property portals (Landmark and Yopa in the UK; Trepp, in the US) making up around 21% and events and exhibitions responsible for 24%.

In its 2026 outlook, the group says revenues will continue to be “affected by website traffic and the advertising market, which is expected to remain volatile.”