According to a June 25 report cited by PYMNTS, Google is asking news publishers in a pilot program featuring “AI-powered article overviews” in Google News and the Gemini AI chatbot to grant the tech giant broad rights over their content, potentially including use for training artificial intelligence models. Publishers who do not agree to participate will eventually lose the annual fee they currently receive from Google for featuring their articles in Google News, as Google plans to end that program. A Google spokesperson stated that the company has been expanding partnerships through its News AI pilot program to explore how AI can drive more engaged audiences. Google noted in a December blog post that it had formed commercial partnerships with more than 3,000 publications, platforms and content providers. Separately, the European Commission announced in December an antitrust investigation into whether Google used web publishers’ content for generative AI services without proper compensation or refusal options. On Wednesday, a coalition of publishers of nearly 400 local and regional newspapers filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement for using their copyrighted articles to build and train commercial AI products without permission or compensation.