Microsoft Copilot overwhelmingly favors American and European media when generating news summaries for Australian users, according to new research from the University of Sydney.
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Key Takeaways
- Only 20% of Microsoft Copilot news responses for Australian users link to Australian sources.
- University of Sydney study: Copilot favors CNN, BBC and ABC America over local outlets.
- Researcher warns of AI-driven news deserts as global outlets dominate national queries.
Only about 20 percent of Copilot’s news responses included links to Australian sources, researcher Dr. Timothy Koskie found. The rest pointed to CNN, BBC and ABC America — despite the user being located in Australia.
“The technology basically sidelined Australian news,” Koskie told The Guardian.
Koskie analyzed 434 AI-generated news summaries for his paper, “Invisible journalists and dominant algorithms,” published this week. In three of seven news prompt categories, no Australian sources appeared at all.
When Australian outlets did surface, they were major players like Nine and the ABC. Smaller, independent publishers were absent. Local journalists were never mentioned by name.
For newsrooms outside the U.S., the findings illustrate a looming problem. As users increasingly get news through AI summaries without clicking through to original sources, outlets lose both traffic and the visibility that builds audience relationships. This echoes concerns raised in the 2026 Reuters Institute predictions about AI intermediaries reshaping news distribution.
“The Australian media ecosystem is already struggling with concentrated ownership, declining independent outlets and news deserts in regional areas,” Koskie said. AI tools “risk compounding Australia’s existing media pluralism challenges rather than alleviating them.”
Koskie recommends extending Australia’s news media bargaining code to cover AI tools and pushing AI companies to embed geographic location more effectively in their systems.
The stakes extend beyond Australia. Any market where local journalism competes with global English-language outlets faces similar risks as AI-generated news summaries become routine. Publishers exploring AI licensing standards may find geographic attribution increasingly critical to their survival.
