Overview
- Google announced the changes on Thursday, August 20, 2026, and published the embeddable Preferred Sources button code for publishers to add immediately.
- The new Preferred Sources button lets readers mark a site on a publisher’s page, returns them to the article, and can help that site appear more often in Top Stories, AI Overviews, and AI Mode; Google says users have selected more than 600,000 unique sources so far.
- Discover will gain a natural‑language, chatbot‑style control that lets people tap the three‑dot menu on any card, describe what they want to see or skip in their own words, and have the feed adjust on the fly and remember those choices.
- Google News on Android will let listeners pick specific topics for daily audio briefings and will include clear source attribution and links to full articles so users can follow up on stories.
- Publishers see the moves as a partial response to AI‑driven traffic declines because the tools let readers steer results, but the rollout is staged and publishers must embed the new button for the immediate on‑site flow to work.