Australian journalism is being marginalised in AI-generated news summaries produced by Microsoft Copilot, according to new academic research that suggests local reporting is largely invisible to users despite them being based in Australia.
The findings come from a study by University of Sydney researcher Dr Timothy Koskie, which examined how Copilot surfaces news content when responding to common information-seeking prompts.
The research found that only around one-fifth of Copilot’s news responses included links to Australian media outlets, with the vast majority favouring US or European sources.
Koskie analysed 434 AI-generated news summaries and found that international outlets such as CNN, the BBC and ABC America were frequently referenced, even when the user was located in Australia. In several cases, Australian sources did not appear at all.
“The technology basically sidelined Australian news,” Koskie said. He noted that when local outlets were included, they were typically large organisations such as Nine or the ABC, while smaller and independent publishers were absent. “No [local] journalist was ever mentioned,” he said.
The study warns that the growing reliance on AI tools for news discovery could exacerbate existing pressures on Australia’s media landscape.
In his paper, Invisible journalists and dominant algorithms, Koskie argues that increased use of AI-generated summaries is likely to contribute to the expansion of news deserts, a reduction in independent voices, and broader risks to democratic participation.
“The technology is just reproducing crises that we didn’t properly attend to before,” he said. “The Australian media ecosystem is already struggling with concentrated ownership, declining independent outlets, and news deserts in regional areas.”
Searching for information, including news, is now one of the most common uses of AI tools, according to surveys conducted by the Reuters Institute. H
owever, when users consume AI-generated summaries without clicking through to original articles, publishers lose referral traffic and advertising revenue, raising concerns about the long-term financial sustainability of news organisations.
Koskie said Copilot’s design appears to privilege global narratives over local reporting. “In Australia was mentioned, it was very often just Australia, rather than Ballarat or the Kimberley,” he said.
“Australians are invisible in this. In international studies, what people trust is the local news. And so we have this issue of declining trust in media, and the media that they’re being exposed to through these new platforms is not the one that people trust, which is local.
“Trust is also in people, and the people are invisible.”
Koskie’s interest in Copilot was sparked after the tool installed itself on his system in 2023 and prompted him to access news through a set of globally focused queries, including questions such as “what are the major health or medical news updates for this week” and “what are the top global news stories today”.
When he followed the prompts, the majority of responses linked to US-based websites. In three of the seven prompts examined, no Australian sources appeared at all.
The findings align with broader concerns raised by the Reuters Institute, which has warned that generative AI “threatens to upend the news industry by offering more efficient ways of accessing and distilling information at scale”.
The Institute has also cautioned that AI-driven search and answer engines could significantly reduce referral traffic to publishers, undermining existing and future business models.
Koskie suggests policy intervention may be needed to ensure local journalism is not further eroded by algorithmic systems.
He proposes extending the scope of Australia’s news media bargaining framework to cover AI tools, and incentivising technology companies to embed geographic awareness into their systems.
“While Copilot may offer a sleek, automated gateway to news, this study highlights its tendencies to reinforce dominant international sources, sideline independent and regional media, and erase the human labour behind journalism itself,” the academic paper concludes. “If left unchecked, such tools risk compounding Australia’s existing media pluralism challenges rather than alleviating them.”The full research paper is available via The Australasian Journal of Research:
https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/ajr_00183_1