Forbes joins Google's paid News AI pilot for citation data

By Priya Raman

Forbes has joined Google's paid News AI pilot, granting the search giant expanded rights to its content in exchange for payment and performance data. The deal, confirmed by Forbes chief innovation officer Nina Gould at Digiday's Media Strategies London event last week, marks another step by publishers to extract value from AI-driven distribution.

Gould said the partnership was paid but declined to discuss the terms.

The program compensates participating publishers for Google's use of "enhanced" content as it develops AI features. For Forbes, the appeal sits as much in the data as in the fee.

What does the pilot actually involve?

Google is testing new ways to give readers context about stories before they click through. The features under development include:

• In-depth article overviews on Google News publisher pages, which give readers context before they open a story
• Customizable audio briefings
• Attribution and direct links to publishers' original content

What does this change for Forbes?

The practical gain is visibility. Forbes will receive citation data and other insights into how its content performs across different experiences on Google's platform. Gould's team can use that information to understand how different categories of content work in different contexts and to inform its own products.

That last point matters for practitioners. Most publishers now see AI summaries as inevitable; the question is whether they can convert that exposure into product intelligence. Forbes is treating the pilot as a research channel as much as a licensing arrangement.

The terms remain undisclosed. Google has not said how many publishers participate or what the payments amount to.

The bet for Forbes is that citation data from Google's AI experiences will shape how it packages content everywhere else.