News Chiefs Scurry to Stamp Out AI Chatbots as New Competitors

Ask Microsoft Corp.’s new Bing chatbot about Donald Trump’s indictment and the artificial intelligence tool delivers a response that strikes fear in media executives.

The three-sentence summary seems helpful, providing links to news outlets like CNN and the Washington Post. It’s also friendly: “Is there anything else you would like me to help you with?”

But media executives see the technology, commonly known as generative AI, as a new existential threat. They worry people will find chatbot summaries of articles good enough and not visit their websites, stealing readers and advertisers, as earlier internet innovations did. And ...