And, more work is needed to understand how commercial relationships between AI companies and news outlets impact prominence.

Does having a licensing deal with OpenAI mean your content will be prioritised in AI answers? And will there be transparency around how these deals work?

But - not all news sites want to be visible in AI answers. The BBC, the UK's most trusted news site, only shows up in half of AI tools. Murky rules on how content gets used mean that trying to block AI won't protect your news brand.

AI also has the potential to create new winners and losers as news sites jostle for visibility. Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is starting to become the new SEO, but it won't always be the most trustworthy sites that win.

We found that AI draws on a narrow range of outlets, with each AI tool concentrating heavily on just one news site.