Google Discover tests a “Dive deeper” button with AI topic overviews

Google Discover is testing a “Dive deeper” button that opens an AI-written topic overview. Robby Stein, vice president of product for Google Search, announced the test on X on 18 September. It starts with video cards.

Tapping the button shows a short summary labelled “Generated with AI, which can make mistakes”. Below it sit source cards and story summaries grouped under sub-headlines. Stein wrote that users will see “prominent links to related stories, community reactions & original reporting”. He added that Google will try “multiple designs in the weeks ahead”.

Google has not said which countries see the Discover test

Search Engine Journal noted that Stein’s post names no countries or languages. Search Engine Roundtable and SEJ both built their reports on the same X post, so there is one primary source so far. There is no post on the Google Search Central blog. PPC Land reported the test runs in the mobile Discover feed and was not yet visible in the UK. It also said code in the app hints that article cards may follow. Google has not confirmed that.

Publisher links move below Google’s own summary

For publishers the question is order. Until now a Discover card sent a reader straight to the article. In the test, the reader first gets Google’s summary, and publisher links appear as small cards underneath. PPC Land quoted Nicola Agius of Reach plc, the UK publisher, who worries readers will take the summary and skip the story. Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable asked why anyone would click through once Google has given the full context.

Discover matters because it is a large source of traffic for news sites. Google has already begun paying publishers when their pages feed AI answers in Search, and some publishers, such as Le Monde, report no audience drop from AI Overviews so far.

Video cards come first, articles may follow

The test touches video cards only, which gives publishers some time. Anyone who gets a large share of traffic from Discover can open the Discover report in Google Search Console today and split clicks by page type. If most Discover visits land on video pages, the test already reaches you. If they land on articles, the question is whether Google extends “Dive deeper” to article cards in the coming weeks.