Some food bloggers warn Google's AI Overviews and AI food pictures are burying their real, tested recipes, setting home cooks up for disaster this Thanksgiving
Food bloggers see traffic dip as home cooks turn to AI, inspired by impossible pictures — Eb Gargano has been writing recipes …
Bloomberg
Context & Ripple Effects
Google had already tested putting complete recipes in search through its Recipe Quick View pilot, a format bloggers feared would keep readers from reaching the original sites. That pilot ended, but this report suggests the underlying referral problem has shifted from direct recipe display to AI-mediated answers and imagery.
The concern also extends a broader publisher dispute: outlets had previously reported traffic declines after the AI Overviews rollout. Recipe creators make the trade-off especially visible because their work depends on both discoverability and users following tested instructions.
First-order effects
Food bloggers face fewer visits from recipe searches as users rely on AI Overviews or generated food images rather than clicking through to tested recipes.
Home cooks may receive more visually persuasive but less dependable guidance at a high-stakes seasonal cooking moment, while Google’s answer layer becomes the primary interface for those queries.
Second-order effects
Lower search referrals put pressure on the advertising- and affiliate-supported economics of recipe publishing, encouraging creators to seek audiences through channels they control more directly.
Google must balance keeping users in search with maintaining confidence in AI food guidance; quality complaints in practical-use queries can make source attribution and click-through more important product questions.
Third-order effects
If answer interfaces consistently absorb high-intent how-to queries, content publishers’ role can shift from destination sites to suppliers of material that platforms summarize, weakening the link between producing useful content and capturing its audience.
The pattern points toward a more contested market for publisher controls and attribution in AI search, particularly where incorrect synthesis has tangible real-world consequences.
The trend: AI search is moving from a referral engine toward an answer layer, forcing publishers to defend the value of original, verifiable content even as platforms retain more user attention.
this is so bleak! very hard to understand why big tech companies are spending tens of billions of dollars to try to ruin the internet for everyone https://www.bloomberg.com/...
I have no doubt this is true, but for the SEO-optimized ad-laden recipe sites to complain about AI, I dunno, it feels like they're not the best ones to complain.
I just want to point out that there is a lane for someone to start a small media company whose express mission statement is “nothing we put on the internet was made by AI” & every time a category gets overrun like this, they branch out [embedded post]
“An AI-assembled version of Gargano's Christmas cake, for instance, would have people cooking a 6-inch cake for 3 to 4 hours at 320°F (160°C). — 'You'd end up with charcoal!' she said. Meanwhile, traffic to her turkey recipe is already down 40% year over year.
“She's even seen tutorial videos that advise specifically on how to target elderly Facebook users with AI images.” — Grifting old people has got to be one of the top uses for AI out there. — When my 88 year old mother visited me, I saw just how much AI nonsense was pushed on …
Yet another story in which content creators say their traffic has plunged since Google started serving up AI Overview answers summarizing their work—in the case of recipes, often wildly incorrectly. (Of course Facebook is also part of this AI-slop problem.) [embedded post]
This is so funny because recipes can literally already be copied and reposted with no attribution or copyright. All AI does here is add statistical noise and make the stolen content useless. AI can't even steal content without fucking it up. [embedded post]
“The issue hit home last Christmas when her husband wanted to try a recipe on Facebook for maraschino cherry chocolate chip cookies — from a post that didn't seem to have a human author or source. [He] trusted the post because ‘it was on Facebook.’” — WTF NO NO NO.
AI Slop Recipes Are Taking Over the Internet — And Thanksgiving Dinner | Food bloggers see traffic dip as home cooks turn to AI, inspired by impossible pictures