☀️ Happy Thursday! The Briefing is your guide to the world of news and information. Sign up here!
In today’s email:
- Featured story: Google announces major changes to search
- In other news: James Murdoch buys Vox.com and New York magazine
- Looking ahead: Local news coverage of AI data centers
- Chart of the week: Half of adults under 50 get information from health and wellness influencers
🔥 Featured story
Google is making major changes to its search experience. Instead of offering the familiar list of links that has existed for decades, queries will sometimes place users into an interactive AI-powered interface where they can engage directly with responses and ask follow-up questions. These updates also will implement new advertising formats, including ads with AI features that allow users to interact with them.
Many Americans already encounter AI-generated summaries in their search results, but views on their value are mixed. Last August, a Pew Research Center survey found that 65% of U.S. adults (including an even larger majority of younger adults) said they had at least sometimes come across these summaries. Among those who had encountered AI search summaries, one-in-five said they found them extremely or very useful, and 6% said they trusted the information in these summaries a lot.
Search engines like Google are a common way many Americans get news: 63% of U.S. adults say they at least sometimes get news this way.
📌 In other news
- James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch, buys Vox.com and New York magazine
- Anderson Cooper departs 60 Minutes after 20 years as the program faces possible changes under Bari Weiss
- The New York Times files second lawsuit against Pentagon over alleged First Amendment violations
- New BBC director general Matt Brittin warns about upcoming cost-cutting measures
- NPR announces cuts and buyouts amid newsroom reorganization
- The Economist tests two versions of its website: one for humans and one for AI
- A local news outlet in Florida was revealed to be created by AI
- Hundreds of local news outlets are limiting web archiving service’s access to their sites due to AI concerns
- The archived FiveThirtyEight website now redirects to ABC News, leading to thousands of articles disappearing
- A look at the rise of hyperlocal neighborhood newsletters
📅 Looking ahead
As data centers needed to power AI continue to pop up around the country, local journalists can play a key role in sharing information about their impacts on communities, including local environments and economies. But the struggles of local news outlets in many areas also create challenges in covering a complicated but important story, and Americans’ attention to local news has declined in recent years.
A quarter of Americans say they’ve heard or read a lot about data centers, while half say they have heard a little and a quarter have heard nothing at all, according to a 2026 Center survey. Americans who have heard more about data centers hold more negative views of their effects.
Another analysis found that most planned data centers in the U.S. are coming to rural areas. A 2018 survey found that rural Americans are less likely to say local news media cover the area where they live.
📊 Chart of the week
This week’s chart comes from a recent Pew Research Center report on health and wellness influencers. An October 2025 survey found that four-in-ten U.S. adults get information from health and wellness influencers on social media or podcasts, with younger adults especially likely to do this.
👋 That’s all for this week.
The Briefing is compiled by Pew Research Center staff, including Naomi Forman-Katz, Christopher St. Aubin, Emily Tomasik, Joanne Haner, and Sawyer Reed. It is edited by Michael Lipka and copy edited by David Kent.
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