Research from the University of Sydney has found Australian journalism is largely “invisible” in Microsoft Copilot’s AI-generated news summaries, which overwhelmingly favor American or European media.
According to university researcher Dr Timothy Kosky, about a fifth of responses to Copilot news prompts feature links to Australian media sources. Center for AI, Trust and Governance.
In his paperInvisible journalists and prominent algorithms, Kosky warns that the increased use of these tools will almost certainly lead to more news deserts, fewer independent voices, and a weakened democracy. He urges the development of policy mechanisms such as news media bargaining codes to help journalism flourish.
Searching for information, including news, is now one of the most widely used tasks of AI Reuters Institute survey.
When users receive AI summaries without clicking through to the original news website, they deprive news outlets of web traffic and revenue, threatening the financial viability of Australian media outlets.
Koski’s analysis of 434 AI-generated news summaries revealed that non-Australian sources CNN, BBC and ABC America were introduced despite the user being based in Australia.
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Technology “fundamentally sidelined Australian news”, he said, and when Australian sources were used they were generally big players like Nine and the ABC, not smaller, independent media. No (local) journalists were ever mentioned,” Koski told Guardian Australia.
“Technology is simply reproducing the crises that we didn’t pay attention to properly before,” he said. “The Australian media ecosystem is already struggling with concentrated ownership, declining independent outlets and news deserts in regional areas.”
Koski became interested in Copilot’s influence when it installed itself on his system without permission in 2023 and invited him to use seven globally focused signals to get his news.
Prompts include: “What are the major health or medical news updates for this week” and “What are the top global news stories today”.
He decided to follow the signs to see where it would take him.
The majority of copilots linked to North American websites, and in three of the seven news signals studied, no Australian sources appeared at all.
“Even when Australia was mentioned, it was often just Australia rather than Ballarat or the Kimberley,” he said.
“Australians are invisible in this. In international studies, what people trust is local news. And so we have the issue of declining trust in the media, and the media they are being exposed to through these new platforms is not what people trust, which is local.
“Faith also lies in people, and people are invisible.”
According to Reuters Institute Predictions for media, journalism and technology in 2026Generative AI “threatens to upend the news industry by offering more efficient ways of accessing and distilling massive amounts of information”.
“Meanwhile search engines are turning to AI-powered answer engines, where content surfaces in chat windows, raising fears that referral traffic for publishers could dry up, undermining existing and future business models.”
Koski, a postdoctoral research associate in digital communications, suggests expanding news media bargaining incentive limits to consider AI tools and encouraging AI companies to embed geolocation in their coding designs.
“While Copilot may provide a sleek, automated gateway to news, this study highlights its tendency to consolidate key international sources, sideline independent and regional media, and erase the human labor behind journalism,” the academic paper warns. “If left unchecked, such tools risk exacerbating rather than alleviating Australia’s existing media pluralism challenges.”
