Google Discover AI summary source taps were a bug, Google says
What this answers
- Did Google disable source links on Discover AI summaries?
- Per Search Engine Journal, a test disabled taps on the source icons under Discover AI summaries; Google's Rajan Patel said it was a bug in an experiment that has been turned off and the experience works as intended again.
Google’s Rajan Patel, VP of Engineering for Search, said on X that disabled taps on the source icons under Google Discover AI summaries were “a bug in a Discover experiment” that has been turned off, per Search Engine Journal. Discover researcher Damien Andell reported the test on Oct 23, finding a flag named “disable_aio_sources_button_tap”; before it, tapping a summary’s sources opened a feed of articles from those sources.
Patel’s reply does not say what the experiment tested, how long it ran, or how many people saw it. Andell later said a different experiment, “aio tap falls through to hero,” replaced it, without explaining how that one works. Search Console’s Discover generative AI report counts impressions of links shown through Discover’s AI features, and Search Console Help describes no metric for source taps.
Why it matters: Discover's AI summaries are a path from an answer to the sites it cites, and a test that cut that path shows how much of the referral link is a setting Google can switch without notice.
The record: Google
Glossary: Google Discover
Posted to the wire October 29, 2026. Edited by Joe Balewski.