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-hands typing on keyboard showing AI search-
AI | Supporter Spotlight

How publishers can survive the AI search shift

Artificial intelligence is rewriting the rules of discovery. Search results are no longer a simple list of blue links. With tools like Google’s AI Mode delivering instant summaries, audiences often get what they need without clicking through to the original source. For publishers, this shift is already visible in their analytics. Mail Online reported click-through rates dropping by more than 50% when AI overviews appeared, even when the site ranked first in traditional search results.

For digital media executives, the implications are serious. Fewer visits mean fewer opportunities to monetize, weaker brand authority and a growing disconnect between audiences and the trusted outlets that produce the content. Readers develop loyalty to the aggregator, not the publisher. The challenge now is to reclaim direct relationships and remind audiences why visiting a publisher’s own site matters.

Strengthening the core

The first priority is to reinforce the value of a publisher’s own destination. Strong editorial identity and a clear brand voice give readers a reason to come back. Investigative reporting, live coverage and deeply reported opinion pieces resist machine-generated simplification and highlight a publisher’s expertise. Investing in these formats makes the brand indispensable and difficult for AI to replicate.

Loyalty programs can also deepen ties. Offering exclusive access, community recognition or tangible perks encourages habitual engagement without relying on restrictive paywalls. The goal is voluntary, not coerced, return visits. Readers should want to come back because the experience is worth it., rather than being pressured through paywalls, aggressive pop-ups, or other forms of friction that limit genuine choice.

Expanding discovery and engagement

Relying on search alone is no longer viable. Audience acquisition needs to extend across a wider ecosystem: partnerships with other respected outlets, distributed content on reliable platforms, curated newsletter growth and smart syndication. Each step reduces dependence on any single traffic source and introduces the brand to new readers. Some publishers have shown how effective this can be, with audience acquisition programs generating hundreds of millions of additional monthly page views across participating outlets, helping to fill gaps left by declining search traffic.

Discovery must also go beyond distribution. Publishers can build intentional paths into their ecosystems by embracing products like curated apps, podcasts, and social channels that are designed to funnel audiences back to their owned platforms. The goal is to make discovery a two-way street: audiences find the publisher, but the publisher also actively guides them toward deeper engagement.

Once visitors arrive, their time must count. Interactive storytelling, immersive explainers and vertical video feeds keep users exploring. Research shows vertical video can generate more than triple the time spent compared with high-impact display ads. Formats that encourage longer sessions strengthen the relationship and increase the value of every visit.

Using AI as an ally

Avoiding AI altogether is not the answer. Publishers can harness machine learning to improve personalization and relevance. AI-powered recommendation engines surface content tailored to individual preferences, reinforcing the brand’s value through context and depth. The key is to integrate AI as a tool for engagement while maintaining control of the narrative.

AI can also automate low-value newsroom tasks such as headline testing, tagging, or formatting, freeing journalists to focus on reporting that machines cannot replicate. At the same time, it strengthens the use of first-party data, helping publishers uncover patterns that drive more relevant content and advertising while respecting privacy. Used in this way, AI becomes less a threat and more a tool to deepen engagement, improve efficiency, and support the distinctive editorial voice that sets publishers apart.

Search and AI: navigating the road ahead

The next five years will determine which digital media companies maintain authority and revenue. Those that cultivate direct relationships, amplify unique editorial strengths and create richer on-site experiences will weather the volatility of platform-driven traffic. Those that don’t risk fading behind a layer of algorithms.

What is unfolding is not just a shift in referral traffic but a structural reordering of how information is discovered, trusted, and monetized. Search is no longer the dependable gateway it once was, and AI is accelerating the pace of change. Publishers that thrive will be those who see discovery as an ecosystem rather than a single channel, who treat loyalty as a relationship rather than a transaction, and who use technology to enhance — not replace — their editorial identity.

The future of publishing will not be decided by algorithms alone. It will be shaped by the ability of publishers to assert their value, claim their place in the open internet, and remind audiences that real journalism and original voices are worth seeking out.

---unlock ad sales growth through pre-sales ---
Advertising | Supporter Spotlight

Unlocking growth through pre-sales in ad ops

For media revenue leaders working in ad operations, the pressure is constant: grow revenue, protect margins, and capture opportunities faster in a crowded marketplace. Yet those goals are often undermined at the very start of the process:  pre-sales.

Often an overlooked part of the Order-to-Cash (OTC) process, pre-sales is a critical phase that shapes pricing, product fit, feasibility, and advertiser expectations, which influence revenue outcomes long before an IO is signed. But it’s also where RFPs, media plans, contracts, and approvals are still handled through manual, disconnected workflows that hinder campaign performance.

That’s beginning to change. Ad Operations teams are rethinking the day-to-day workflows in pre-sales. They’re replacing manual effort with automation that delivers consistency, accuracy, and momentum. This shift is building healthier pipelines, stronger margins, and a clearer link between operations and profit.

For media industry revenue leaders, this is more than a workflow issue. The tangible benefits highlight the upside of change. However, they also underscore why pre-sales can’t remain manual. Left untouched, it drags on margins, delays responses, and weakens advertiser trust.

Why pre-sales can’t stay manual

Despite its critical role, advertising pre-sales is still weighed down by outdated processes. RFPs bounce between inboxes, media plans are rebuilt in multiple spreadsheets, and contracts move only when someone manually follows up. Each step slows the deal cycle and multiplies the risk of errors.

The result isn’t just wasted time. It’s missed opportunities, inconsistent pricing, and proposals that reach advertisers too late. Proposals are often prolonged and require repeated rework. And in some cases, deals are lost outright when responses arrive too late. Errors slip in, deals drag out, and the credibility of the entire sales process takes a hit.

For revenue leaders, that’s more than an operational nuisance. Manual pre-sales creates revenue leakage: slow responses mean lost deals, mismatched proposals squeeze margins, and rework inflates delivery costs. In a marketplace where speed and accuracy are decisive, manual workflows put growth goals at risk before a single campaign even launches.

When pre-sales shifts away from manual effort, it doesn’t just remove inefficiencies – it highlights just how much revenue is left on the table until automation takes hold.

The revenue upside of fixing pre-sales

Automation in pre-sales does more than streamline workflows – it creates a stronger engine for revenue. Automated intake, planning, and approvals move proposals to advertisers faster and with greater accuracy. Connected systems eliminate duplicate entry, giving sales and ops teams a single source of truth from the very first step.

Yet tools alone are not enough. Inconsistent use of CRMs and planning systems often leaves downstream teams working from incomplete or inaccurate information.

Structured automation closes those gaps by ensuring proposals are built on reliable inputs and aligned across functions from the start.

Instead of delays and rework, sales teams see deals advance with fewer obstacles and greater predictability. Advertisers receive timely proposals aligned to inventory and pricing, reducing the risk of mismatched expectations. For advertisers, this translates into faster, more accurate proposals that align with their objectives and build trust from the first interaction. Internally, ad ops teams spend less energy on corrections and more time on activities that drive growth – from refining strategy to deepening client relationships.

For revenue leaders, these improvements are operational wins that translate into measurable outcomes: higher proposal acceptance rates, healthier pipelines, stronger margins, and a clearer connection between operational execution and financial performance.

And those gains don’t stop once the IO is signed. The strength of pre-sales sets the tone for everything that follows – from campaign delivery to long-term client relationships.

Pre-sales as the foundation for long-term success

The value of optimizing pre-sales sets the tone for the entire OTC process. Campaign teams inherit cleaner plans, delivery starts with fewer corrections, and client service teams avoid the frustration of resetting advertiser expectations.

Without that consistency, delivery teams often find themselves having to resell deals internally. That means that must translate proposals into what can realistically be executed. Over time, these inefficiencies compound, which inflates delivery costs and weakens advertiser confidence. Renewal opportunities are lost when campaigns fail to meet objectives, and long-term revenue suffers.

By contrast, when proposals are execution-ready from the start, disputes are minimized, renewals are stronger, and organizations can scale without proportional increases in headcount. That’s because growth is built on reliable, repeatable processes rather than manual workarounds.

For revenue leaders in the media industry, the takeaway is simple: pre-sales is more than process. It’s the foundation for stronger margins, lasting client loyalty, and a business built to scale.

-confused about programmatic ctv advertising terminology-
Advertising | Supporter Spotlight | Video

Programmatic confusion is holding CTV back – can we fix it?

If you read the latest analyst forecasts or industry headlines, a clear narrative emerges: programmatic is taking over connected TV. The reality is more complex. While automated deliveries are indeed growing, programmatic’s role in CTV remains widely misunderstood – and sometimes overstated.

This matters for media owners. Confusion around definitions and measurement can distort investment decisions, complicate yield strategies, and cloud how some publishers position their ad inventory in a rapidly evolving market. Understanding where programmatic fits, and where it doesn’t, is essential for anyone making decisions about CTV monetization.

The latest FreeWheel Video Marketplace Report (VMR) found that over 70% of streaming ad views are still delivered directly, outside of programmatic channels. At the same time, some industry forecasts suggest that over 80% of CTV spend is already programmatic. The gap between these figures highlights a deeper problem: the industry still lacks a shared way of defining and measuring programmatic in CTV.

Why the disconnect exists

Programmatic, at its simplest, is about automation. Yet in everyday use, the term has stretched so far that it now covers almost everything. This can include everything from open exchange bidding and private marketplaces to programmatic guaranteed deals, and even digitized versions of old-style insertion orders.

This broad application muddies the waters. For example, guaranteed CTV buys executed through programmatic channels may be classified as programmatic, even though they behave more like direct transactions. At the same time, some forecasts group together very different formats, such as in-stream, outstream, and social video. all under the CTV umbrella. The result is an inflated picture of programmatic’s footprint in premium CTV environments, which has resulted in a narrative that does not always reflect the actual transactions taking place.

For media owners, the problem isn’t just about definitions. It directly affects how buyers perceive value, how inventory is packaged, and how technology investments are prioritised. When “programmatic” can have four or five different meanings, publishers risk being evaluated against expectations that do not align with the real economics of their supply.

CTV is not display, and not linear

Part of the challenge is that CTV doesn’t fit neatly into existing categories. It isn’t digital display, and it isn’t traditional TV. Instead, it combines TV living-room style viewing with digital-style automation.

That in-between status has consequences. Budgets often get split between TV and digital teams, leading to competing KPIs and conflicting expectations. Agencies with more established brand clients may prioritize guaranteed premium placements, while performance-led advertisers may lean towards real-time optimization. Both want automation, but they mean very different things when they use the word “programmatic.”

And then there are publisher realities. Premium inventory is finite. Direct deals remain the backbone when it comes to revenue and they allow tighter control over both supply and the viewing experience. Adding programmatic layers can introduce extra costs and unnecessary operational complexity. Not to mention ongoing issues with signal loss, fraud, lack of transparency, and inventory duplication which all make it harder to trust the open exchange. The idea of pushing all CTV into this model simply doesn’t reflect how premium video is bought and sold today.

The impact of language and alignment

A serious stumbling block for the industry is not the technology but the terminology. “programmatic” is being used to describe multiple, fundamentally different transaction models. Without clearer definitions, buyers and sellers risk building toward different futures. That leaves publishers in a difficult position. Do they double down on auction-based infrastructure, channel resources into tools that support direct guarantees, or try to straddle both? Without greater industry alignment, even the most carefully designed strategies can end up misfiring.

Buyers, too, grow wary when CTV is labelled as “programmatic” but still depends on direct negotiation. The result is a disconnect between expectation and reality. That, in turn, can hold back spend, despite CTV’s growing share of consumer attention. The confusion makes it harder for publishers to position their inventory correctly, and for buyers to evaluate its true value.

A more grounded future

A large share of premium CTV deals still happen within closed publisher ecosystems, using formats and configurations that escape conventional measurement tools. The real challenge isn’t just automation – with the risk of mirroring the display advertising model – it’s figuring out how to make programmatic truly fit CTV without reinforcing the fragmentation that already limits transparency and scale.

This will mean new models that reflect the economics of television, rather than forcing CTV into frameworks designed for other channels. It will also mean new tools that allow publishers to maintain supply control while offering buyers efficiency, better transparency, and the ability to tailor how they transact.

For media owners, progress requires pressing for greater alignment on terminology, more transparency in measurement, and continued investment in infrastructure that supports both efficiency and control. The challenges are real. But so are the opportunities.

-concept shows programmatic ad and revenue squeeze-
Advertising | Supporter Spotlight

How smart publishers are winning in a squeezed media economy

Publishers are under siege. Platforms and AI are siphoning off traffic, ad dollars are consolidating, and the rules of digital media are being rewritten in real time. According to a recent forecast by eMarketer, 85% of programmatic display ad dollars will transact via programmatic direct and PMP in 2026, leaving smaller players fighting for scraps. This isn’t a passing storm. It’s a structural reset of the media economy that threatens to push many publishers to the margins.

Yet moments of disruption can be moments of reinvention. Publishers that once relied on stability must now build resilience. They need to diversify revenue streams, cultivate loyal audiences, and lean on partners who can shoulder the heavy lift of technology, brand safety, and optimization. Survival in this market doesn’t come from standing still. It comes from adapting with speed and purpose.

What’s causing the squeeze

Advertisers are consolidating spending on fewer, trusted partners—supply sources that deliver quality, brand safety, performance, and scale. For independent publishers, that means competing against much larger players with deeper pockets and more sophisticated technology.

Meanwhile, running an in-house programmatic stack has become unsustainable. Effective yield management requires continuous testing, demand path optimization, identity and brand safety investments, dynamic pricing strategies, and strong demand partner relationships. 

The result? Media companies are being crowded out. Without adapting, many publishers risk losing visibility and revenue in a marketplace dominated by scale.

The power of programmatic scale

The growth of sales houses isn’t accidental; it’s structural. As the dedicated monetization partner for multiple publishers and a one-stop shop for advertisers, sales houses combine diverse ad inventory in a single channel. The model rests on significant fixed-cost investments in technology, teams, and innovation beyond what a single publisher can rationalize. 

By aggregating supply, sales houses can unlock efficiencies and command more attractive demand relationships. At Raptive, we run over 750 optimization experiments annually across 6,000 sites, generating insights no single publisher could replicate. We believe that, by tapping into that level of learning, publishers can turn programmatic into a resilient engine of sustainable growth.

This explains why the sales house category has grown by 31% in three years: many publishers are tapping into those benefits rather than going it alone. 

The bottom line: ad management is a strategic advantage. It allows publishers to increase revenue, cut costs, compete with scaled players, and adapt to the changing flow of ad dollars. 

Four strategies for surviving the squeeze

What can publishers do in the face of so much change? The rules of digital media are shifting fast, but with the right programmatic approach, audience focus, and monetization plan, there are clear ways to stay competitive. Here are four smart moves to help publishers grow stronger and smarter in today’s disrupted media landscape.

Build your brand

Brand is the ultimate differentiator—and the most reliable antidote to platform volatility. As Gen Z matures beyond its “TikTok generation” reputation, it seeks trusted sources to guide decisions around home ownership, careers, and finances. They value authenticity and expertise, not clickbait or surface-level content. 

Advertisers follow the same logic. They value publishers whose audiences already see them as credible. And strong brands don’t just win loyalty; they also drive more direct traffic, as readers bypass intermediaries and head straight to the publisher’s front door. That kind of audience relationship is invaluable in an era of shrinking search referrals and shifting algorithms. The risk of inaction is steep: our research shows trust drops by nearly 50% when readers suspect content is AI-generated. Publishers who invest in building strong brands now will secure resilience. This results in reader loyalty, advertiser trust, and a steady stream of front-door traffic.

Diversify traffic sources

AI-generated results and the rise of zero-click searches mean that search is an increasingly unreliable source of traffic—an existential threat for publishers who lean too heavily on SEO. Expanding reach through alternatives like Google Discover—already rivaling search in some categories—along with emerging platforms such as Newsbreak, opens new pathways to audience acquisition. 

Social referrals have declined but remain a vital offset to search dependency. For lean teams, subject-matter expertise and dedicated resources are critical to uncovering and executing creative strategies that balance traffic sources and protecting long-term growth.

Prioritize direct sales

Programmatic may be gobbling up advertising budgets, but that doesn’t mean publishers should completely abandon direct sales. The 20% of ad spend not going to programmatic is worth fighting for. In fact, combining private marketplace sales with direct sales can boost inventory value to 2-3x that of the open market. For media companies, the challenge is scale: partnering with the right sales house extends your reach, unlocking premium demand without adding overhead.

Invest in identity solutions

Google hasn’t killed cookies, but that doesn’t mean publishers can afford to sleep on authenticated traffic. The pressure is still mounting—from regulators, from savvier users demanding privacy, and from the nearly one billion people worldwide now invisible to advertisers due to ad blockers. Maximizing email-identified traffic and leveraging the right technology can deliver 30–90% more revenue in cookieless environments. The challenge is scale: no single publisher can match the reach of major platforms alone. But by tapping into networks that have invested in ID solutions for years, publishers can benefit from identity matching across thousands of sites—unlocking richer data, stronger advertiser demand, and long-term competitive strength.

Gain power through partnerships

Sales houses provide access to expertise, technology, and scale that individual publishers can’t easily build on their own, reducing operational strain, unlocking competitive advantages, and freeing up resources to focus on what matters most—delivering the kind of authentic, trusted content that keeps audiences coming back.

In an era defined by shifting algorithms, rising privacy expectations, and tighter resources, resilience won’t come from going it alone. Resilience, and success, are built by combining authentic brands with smart strategies and the right partners.

-concept showing AI incorporated into publishing workflow-
AI | Supporter Spotlight

The year of now: an AI turning point for publishers

In the media industry, AI’s hype cycle has officially entered its hard reality era. As Arc XP’s Chief Technology Officer Joe Croney put it during our recent webinar Real Automation, Real Agents, Real Impact, 2023 was “the year of wow,” 2024 “the year of how,” and 2025 is “the year of now.”

AI in media has matured beyond experimental pilots and workflow quick wins. The question is no longer if you will use AI. It’s how you’ll use it to stand out in a marketplace where speed, volume, and even exclusivity are no longer differentiators.

Arc XP’s latest report with Digiday, surveying 108 publishers and broadcasters to understand how media organizations are incorporating AI into their newsrooms, confirms the stakes:

  • 97% of publishers are investing in AI.
  • 88% are prioritizing AI to elevate content quality, not just efficiency.
  • Yet only 1% have scaled AI across their organizations.

For the rest, the gap between AI experimentation and AI transformation is the opportunity and the risk.

Beyond automation: the rise of agentic workflows

The first wave of AI in the newsroom focused on automation by reducing labor time, accelerating production, and streamlining repetitive tasks. Those gains are real: 86% of publishers report reduced labor time and 85% report faster creation.

But the next wave, already underway, is about agentic workflows. Here, AI-powered assistants work in the background or are embedded in storytelling. They are designed to support journalists, not replace them.

Arc XP’s vision, as described by VP of Arc Intelligence Joey Marburger, is clear: “AI is like a junior reporter. Train it, guide it, but never expect it to replace your newsroom.”

In practice, this means agents that:

  • Check style guides automatically.
  • Suggest metadata and keywords in real time.
  • Surface relevant video, photo, and archival content instantly.
  • Summarize research while keeping humans in the editorial driver’s seat.

This “human-in-the-loop” approach is essential to maintaining trust, brand integrity, and editorial judgment, qualities AI cannot replicate.

Content has been commoditized. Insight has not.

Generative AI can repackage, summarize, and distribute stories faster than any newsroom. That means the old competitive advantages—speed, volume, and exclusivity—no longer guarantee audience loyalty.

What AI can’t replicate are journalistic instincts, mission, and audience. That’s why leading publishers are using AI to free up time for original reporting, local engagement, and audience-driven experimentation.

By pairing AI tools with secure, flexible, media-focused workflows, news organizations can focus on what machines can’t create: voice, context, originality, and trust.

Multi-modal storytelling for audience 3.0

Our State of AI in the newsroom report revealed AI is accelerating multimedia production—82% of publishers use it for video editing, 87% for image optimization. However, many remain dissatisfied with quality and consistency.

Arc XP’s AI roadmap tackles this head-on with a vector-based asset database, enabling instant retrieval of relevant photos, video clips, and audio. This makes it possible to reformat content across modalities, turning a text story into a video or podcast, or transforming audio interviews into publish-ready text, without sacrificing editorial quality.

This is critical for “Audience 3.0,” where engagement is immersive, adaptive, and co-created. In this environment, text-only strategies aren’t enough; audiences expect stories that move, speak, and adapt to their preferences.

An AI business imperative

AI isn’t just an editorial tool. It’s a business weapon. Our research shows forward-looking publishers are using AI to:

  • Personalize content delivery
  • Improve accessibility
  • Unlock new revenue streams by protecting and monetizing premium content from AI crawlers and bots

These capabilities are also part of a broader shift toward strengthening direct audience relationships. This is particularly important at a time when referrals are declining and chat-based AI platforms are changing how people discover content.

The clock is ticking

In 2025, the divide is clear: publishers who treat AI as a strategic advantage are redefining their markets. Those who don’t risk irrelevance.

The winning formula is already visible:

  • Treat AI as a platform, not a plug-in.
  • Align editorial, product, and engineering around shared goals.
  • Protect and monetize your intellectual property.
  • Prioritize originality, insight, and human voice over scale alone.

The transformation window is open now. But it will not stay open forever. The choice is stark: lead the market by building intelligent, human-centered AI systems that multiply your newsroom’s impact, or watch from the sidelines as competitors redefine the media business without you.

---live interactive news engaging audience---
Innovation

Live, interactive news: real-time trust and real-world impact

The 2025 Reuters Digital News Report provides a sharp snapshot of the current state of digital journalism: audiences are overwhelmed, trust is fragile, and the format of news delivery matters more than ever. These aren’t new challenges. However, the urgency has intensified, along with the opportunity for publishers ready to meet audiences where they are.

How we deliver news can play a crucial role in why audiences return. Live, interactive news formats are more than a content style. They are also a tool for rebuilding trust, deepening engagement, and strengthening the bottom line.

Trust is fragile, but fixable

This year’s report confirms an ongoing crisis of trust in news. Yet it also offers a glimmer of hope. Encouragingly, 38% of people say they turn to trusted news outlets first, while only 14% go to social media. This reinforces what we’ve long believed: audiences want credible information, but they want it delivered in a way that fits the fast-paced, mobile-first world they live in.

Live blogs and real-time updates play a crucial role here. By showing how information is gathered, when it’s updated, and who is reporting it, live coverage inherently encourages transparency. It’s a format that invites accountability and provides a natural space for in-context fact-checking, source attribution, and even conflict-of-interest disclosures.

Süddeutsche Zeitung saw seven out of its 10 most-read articles in 2023 come from live blogs. They use the format not just to update but to explain, embedding transparency cues and structured fact-checks within its real-time coverage. FAZ achieved over 8x longer retention rates on live blogs than traditional articles: proof that real-time transparency helps retain trust and attention.

There’s also an untapped opportunity in building meta-coverage—live blogs that relate to the reporting process itself. Who broke the story? How was it verified? What questions are still open? During the 2024 U.S. election, Der Spiegel deployed a collaborative newsroom effort, where 33 journalists contributed to a single live blog. Readers could see not just the unfolding story but the multi-perspective editorial process in action. The approach blends speed, transparency, and team-driven insight in one coherent stream. This kind of behind-the-scenes work can help restore confidence in an age of skepticism.

Instant, micro-content

Another key finding from the Reuters report is the growing demand for shorter, more accessible formats, particularly among younger readers. At a time when many consumers feel overwhelmed by endless scrolling and algorithmic content streams, live blogs offer something different. They offer a coherent, time-stamped narrative that delivers key facts quickly, yet with enough context to foster a deeper understanding.

Unlike social media snippets, live blogs are built around editorial judgement. Unlike long-form articles, they’re agile and responsive. They give audiences real-time coverage of politics, sports, and community events on one coherent platform.

For example, during election nights, we’ve seen publications use live blogs not only to report results but also to explain shifting trends, share expert commentary. They also link to explanatory articles—all within one feed. It’s the ideal format for audiences who want to stay informed without being overloaded. A powerful example comes from Stears in Nigeria, which garnered more than 10 times the traffic on its live blog compared to its standard articles during the 2023 elections.

Interactive news as a differentiator

Today’s audiences don’t just want to consume the news; they want to engage with it. Interactive news is the answer. The Reuters report shows increasing interest in formats that allow for interaction and explanation, especially among younger and more skeptical readers.

Live blogs are ideal for interactive features like reader polls, Q&As with journalists and experts, and moderated comment threads, all embedded directly into the coverage. This turns passive readers into active participants and reinforces the human side of journalism.

This is part of a broader trend. For instance, Stuff in New Zealand regularly engages readers through polls and live Q&As. Its Met Gala coverage received over 1,000 reader responses, while Taylor Swift ticketing coverage triggered more than 400 comments in real-time. These aren’t just passive metrics; they reflect an audience eager to feel part of the conversation.

Sustainability and innovation

For publishers facing revenue pressure, these formats aren’t just good for engagement, they’re good for business. Customizable, brand-integrated live feeds open up new opportunities for native sponsorships, affiliate placements, and reader subscriptions. They also drive reader loyalty through habitual check-ins and notifications.

At regional German paper Westfälische Nachrichten, the paywalled soccer live blog achieved a 7.3% subscriber reach—a particularly strong result that demonstrates how high-value, recurring live formats can support subscription strategies. Whether it’s covering a local election or a global sporting event, live blogs are proving to be not just editorial assets but commercial ones.

A strategic roadmap for newsrooms

If there’s one clear takeaway from the 2025 Reuters report, it’s that format is strategy. As automation and AI transform the backend of journalism, publishers must also reconsider the front-end user experience.

Live blogs offer a versatile way for publishers to respond to today’s challenges. By prioritizing transparency and making editorial processes visible in real-time, they help reinforce trust with audiences who increasingly want to understand where their news comes from. At the same time, features like multi-reporter collaboration, easy formatting, AI-powered tools, and partner integrations make live blogs more efficient for editorial teams, allowing them to focus on what matters most: delivering compelling, real-time storytelling. They also meet the growing demand for bite-sized, easy-to-navigate updates, providing a clear, chronological narrative that cuts through information overload.

Crucially, live blogs also create space for deeper engagement. Whether through interactive Q&As, embedded polls, or moderated comments, they transform readers from passive consumers into active participants. And from a business perspective, they unlock new value through repeat visits, increased dwell time, and formats that are ready for sponsorship or brand integration.

Trust isn’t just built on accuracy; it’s built on experience. Audiences want news they can believe and a format that respects their time, attention, and intelligence. With the right tools, publishers can deliver both. Live, interactive news won’t solve all of the industry’s challenges, but as this year’s Digital News Report makes clear, it’s a critical piece of the puzzle, and one that’s ready to scale.

---Broadcasters_Successfully_Navigate_streaming---
Supporter Spotlight | Video

3 ways broadcasters can expertly navigate streaming

The shift to streaming hasn’t just changed what we watch or how we watch, it’s changed everything behind the scenes, too. The premium video playbook has largely been rewritten. And while the audience now enjoys more content and control than ever before, media companies are working just as hard to keep up.

For broadcasters, the challenge can appear especially acute. Unlike streaming-first platforms, broadcasters aren’t digital natives. They are often navigating change while juggling strict regulations, legacy systems, broad audience demographics, and a different media economy. But with the right focus, they can keep pace and also lead. In this article, we explore three areas where broadcasters can take control and future-proof their business and find streaming success.

1. Make the viewer experience the priority

Audiences today have many options to choose from when watching content. While broadcasters still have an edge when it comes to trusted, high-quality content, they can’t afford to take it easy when it comes to UX. The viewing experience – especially the ad experience – can make or break a viewer’s loyalty.

As we’ve seen, advertising is becoming a conduit to access premium video. Viewers aren’t against it; they just don’t want a bad ad experience. Repetitive, irrelevant, or disruptive ads are what turn people away. For broadcasters making their journey into streaming, there are ways to address these issues. Our research at FreeWheel shows that simple steps like managing ad frequency, rotating creative more effectively, and improving relevance go a long way toward keeping viewers engaged.

Tools that smooth out the ad experience can help broadcasters strike the right balance: keeping viewers satisfied while delivering results for advertisers. But it’s not just about tech. It’s also about data. By building stronger first-party data strategies, broadcasters can better understand what drives their audiences’ choices, and how to attract new viewers.

This data can inform everything from better content recommendations to granular ad targeting. It also makes it possible to serve more relevant ads across devices, which matters more than ever as viewing continues to fragment. A data-led approach leads to a viewing experience that feels consistent, relevant, and personal, whether someone’s watching live sports on streaming or catching up on dramas on VOD. That kind of seamlessness builds deeper customer trust, and keeps viewers coming back.

2. Be ready for live, technically and strategically

Live programming has always been a stronghold for broadcasters. Sports, news, and major televised events are all familiar territory. But in the streaming world, live comes with new demands.

When audiences tune in en masse for a live event, there’s no room for error. Spikes in viewership, inventory exclusions, and creative approvals not lining up are just a few of the critical challenges. When they have an impact, it’s not just the experience that takes a hit. It’s also revenue and the value of the inventory.

This is why tech readiness is critical. Broadcasters need the right infrastructure to handle the unpredictability of live events in a streaming environment. That means being able to adjust campaign pacing in real time, ensure creatives are pre-approved and ready to go, and facilitate access to a broader range of advertisers, even those without the optimal tech stack.

Traditionally, programmatic technology has offered an answer to some of these issues. And recent advancements have made it easier to automate and scale ad delivery on live content. Even when viewership spikes unexpectedly, advertisers can still reach their intended audiences, and broadcasters can capture the full value of that demand.

This is where technology and live experience can intersect to create seamless transactions and efficient audience targeting. Broadcasters know how to do live. With the right tools in place, they can now do it better, faster, and more profitably in a streaming world.

3. Streamline access to unified inventory

The push for simpler, more efficient supply paths isn’t new, but with the evolution of the premium video landscape, it has taken on a new meaning. Advertisers want easier, direct access to quality inventory. However, that inventory is now fragmented across screens, channels, and types of transactions. So, while broadcasters have what advertisers seek – premium, brand-safe environments with scalable reach – the trick is making those connections easier in a unified manner.

A streamlined, unified access to inventory doesn’t just help advertisers. It helps broadcasters, too. It enables them to gain better visibility across all demand sources, optimize ad decisions (including pacing and frequency), and reduce friction in transactions. It ultimately unlocks more value across all screens and sales channels.

Bottom line: Focus on the viewer

As the lines between traditional TV and streaming continue to blur, broadcasters who focus on the viewer, live content and unified inventory, can position themselves to lead. Yes, they already have unique advantages, including the quality of the content, audiences at scale and engaged viewers. However, there are other areas that TV stakeholders will need to further work on to compete effectively, not least working together and facilitating access to their inventory.

This is an increasingly important issue which deserves to be looked into separately. Ultimately, broadcast (premium video) quality will continue to be the gold standard. So, it is important that advertisers and their agencies consider these points carefully when planning their media buys.

---Happy user/ customer who is part of a publisher's loyal audience ---
Audiences | Marketing | Supporter Spotlight

You can’t outsource loyalty

In digital publishing, loyalty is everything. Yet most of today’s traffic still comes from platforms we don’t control: social media, search and aggregators like Google Discover. That worked for a while. But now, the rules are changing fast. And, to build a loyal audience, you’ll need to change your approach. 

Google recently announced that AI-generated summaries will appear in Discover previews. This means fewer clicks to publishers, and more time spent inside Google’s own environment. Even DiscoverSnoop, a tool built specifically to track Discover performance, warns that they don’t offer annual plans because they don’t know if Discover will still be relevant in a few months. 

Social traffic is shrinking, too. Facebook has reduced visibility for news links by over 80% since its pivot away from journalism in 2021. And with AI summaries becoming more common in search results, even Google Search is becoming less reliable as a traffic source.

That leaves one source of traffic with long-term value: people who come to you directly. The good news is that this has been perfected by many publishers, and it’s an easy strategy to emulate.

Direct traffic means real connection

Direct traffic isn’t just a number in a dashboard. It’s a sign of trust. It means someone typed in your URL, opened your app, clicked a bookmark, or followed your newsletter link. They didn’t stumble onto your content. They came to you on purpose.

In the Nordics, we see publishers with 80–90% of their traffic coming direct. This is not a coincidence. It’s a result of long-term product decisions that support reader habits: live coverage, frequently updated and often personalized front pages with high click-through rates, well-timed and relevant push notifications that bring readers back in real time, newsletters tailored to reader interests and sent at moments when your audience is most likely to engage, and strong editorial presence.

Subscriptions follow loyalty

Many publishers try to win subscriptions from users who come through search, Discover, or social. That’s fine, but most of these readers are only there for a single article. And most won’t stay on to become loyal audience members.

The most valuable subscriptions come from users who already know your brand. They return often. They read more than one story. They come back even without a link.

Recent research from Northwestern’s Medill Spiegel Research Center confirms that reader regularity – how often a subscriber visits your site – is the strongest predictor of retention. This finding held across 107 U.S. newspapers, beating out pageviews and time on site as indicators of subscriber health.

In fact, a Medill study of a business weekly showed that having readers who read more often is 10 times more important than having them read more articles.

A subscription model built on one-off clicks amounts to renting your audience rather than building a lasting relationship.

How Stuttgarter Zeitung built more direct traffic

One example comes from Stuttgarter Zeitung. In a recent LinkedIn post, Carsten Groß shared how the paper almost doubled its direct traffic in 18 months. They didn’t rely on hacks. They focused on five areas:

  1. Clear targeting of core audiences
  2. Supporting teams with data and feedback
  3. Building ecosystems around newsletters and video
  4. Improving on-site value for loyal audience members
  5. Strong breaking news coverage

The result was not just more traffic, but more predictable, repeatable, and resilient engagement.

What remains when platforms disappear

Platforms will continue to change. Some may disappear. The only thing they have in common is that they are not serving your long-term interests. The only audience you control is the one that comes to you directly.

Any publisher that expects to remain relevant in the years ahead needs a clear strategy for increasing direct traffic. Without one, you remain dependent on systems you do not control. That is a risk no publisher can afford to ignore.

The front page is your most important habit-forming tool

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear describes how habits form through a loop of cue, craving, response and reward. This loop is driven by dopamine.

Source: Atomic Habits, Figure 9

The same mechanism applies when a reader visits a news site. The front page is the cue. If the visit is rewarded, the habit is reinforced. If not, the impulse weakens.

In the beginning (illustrated as A in the diagram), dopamine is released when the reward is experienced. Over time, as the habit takes shape (B), dopamine begins to rise earlier—at the moment the cue is recognized—because the brain now expects the reward. This anticipation creates a sense of motivation and reinforces the habit.

But when the expected reward doesn’t come (C), dopamine drops. The result is disappointment, and over time, the habit may stop altogether.

This applies directly to how readers interact with a front page. Each visit is a response to a cue—often formed by habit. If the page offers something new or relevant, the reward is delivered and the habit is strengthened. But if the content is unchanged, predictable, or uninteresting, the reader leaves with nothing—and the loop is broken.

Earlier in this article, I referenced research from Medill showing that visit frequency is more important than article depth when it comes to long-term subscription value. Readers who come back often are far more likely to stay. But to support that pattern, each visit needs to deliver something fresh.

That’s why personalization must begin at the top of the page. Not halfway down, and not just in selected modules. For it to work in a newsroom context, it has to be done responsibly—with editorial oversight and clear boundaries. A news brand cannot personalize like a social platform. I’ve written more about what responsible personalization looks like here: Informed personalization: editors in charge, trust at stake.

Happy media executives and brand partner success -------------------
Advertising | Industry-Research | Supporter Spotlight | Video

Media companies: Here’s how to win big with brand partners

For media executives, streaming used to be a thorn in the side of linear TV. Not anymore. With consumers continuing to cut the cord and major players like Netflix, Amazon, and Disney+ finally adding ad-supported tiers to their offerings, streaming has become the new front line of not just TV programming, but TV advertising too.  

I was in Cannes a few weeks ago to meet with clients and understand their priorities for the year ahead. We had just come out with a new report on the rise of streaming TV and shared some impressive top numbers with the industry. But, unsurprisingly, they wanted to know where growth was most likely to come from for them. 

It’s all well and good that auto, retail, finance, and pharma companies are spending over $1 billion on streaming platforms, they said, but which of those (and a dozen other) industries should they appeal to first? What types of advertisers within those industries might be most likely to respond? And for our media clients with both linear and streaming properties, how should they balance their media sales efforts between streaming and traditional TV?

To kick start the conversation, we decided to use our MediaRadar data to compare what brands have been spending on streaming platforms over the past few years to what they’ve been spending on linear TV. Mind you, not just linear TV but what most consider the bastion of linear TV: NFL broadcasts. The early results are remarkable and might affect how you think about your next media sales pitch.

Why NFL advertisers?

NFL games — and live sports in general — are tentpole events keeping traditional TV alive. However, streaming sports deals are multiplying and starting to lift media companies beyond major broadcasters too. Most football advertisers are in it for the reach and are well entrenched in linear TV advertising. However, many others are starting to recognize streaming as a natural extension of their traditional TV investments and a way to take their targeting capabilities to new heights. We thought that the intersection of those two advertising universes — streaming TV on one hand, and NFL games on linear TV on the other — would offer interesting contrasts and actionable insights for streaming media executives at a crucial time in their platforms’ development.

Another reason why this comparison is interesting is that advertisers spend about as much on NFL linear TV broadcasts ($8.5 billion during the 2024-25 season) as they do across all programs on streaming platforms ($7 billion during those same six months). So we’re not talking about two wildly different media channels with very unique advertising patterns and dynamics. It’s not streaming against the whole of linear TV and its $60 billion advertising market, for instance.

The overlap here is substantial. Figure 1 shows that between early August 2024 and early February 2025 (from the NFL pre-season to Super Bowl LIX), 23% of all the brands in our analysis advertised both on streaming platforms and during an NFL game on linear TV.

Figure 1:  Overlap between streaming and linear TV advertisers during the 2024-25 NFL season
Source: MediaRadar

Football TV advertisers make clutch streaming partners

Of all the brands that advertised on streaming platforms in that six-month period, roughly half aired commercials during NFL games on linear TV as well. That’s been a fairly consistent picture over the years, as Figure 2 illustrates. The share of brands that advertise exclusively on linear TV has also been shrinking every year.

Figure 2:  Share of the number of streaming and linear TV advertisers during the last four NFL seasons
Source: MediaRadar

There’s still a long way to go to convince all of those brands to give streaming a chance. However, those that have made the jump already contribute the lion’s share of streaming TV revenues. Figure 3 shows that they represented 23% of all advertisers during the 2024-25 NFL season but accounted for 64% of all media spend in our analysis (and 87% of all streaming media spend).

Figure 3: Share of streaming and NFL media spend on linear TV during the last four NFL seasons
Source: MediaRadar

Move up the chains

What type of brand should your media sales team pursue first? On average, beer & wine brands spent $1.2 million on all streaming platforms from Aug ‘24 to Feb ‘25, but they spent nearly $7.4 million during NFL games on linear TV. There’s plenty of room to grow. During that same period, telecom advertisers spent $2.7 million on streaming and $6.5 million on NFL TV broadcasts. Car manufacturers: $4.5 million and $11.7 million. Figure 4 shows the current gap in media spend for a typical brand in a number of sports-friendly industries.

Figure 4:  Average media spend per advertiser during the 2024-25 NFL season (million dollars)
Source: MediaRadar

In some sectors like restaurants, pharma, or insurance, streaming budgets are already on par with football budgets on linear TV, but they’re well behind in many other popular sectors. As more NFL games and other sports franchises transition to streaming, there’s a clear opportunity for media sales teams to bring those budgets closer together.

That doesn’t mean that streaming growth will always come at the expense of linear TV, of course. Between Aug ‘24 and Feb ‘25, Modelo tripled its streaming budget (from $4.4 million to $14.5 million) while also increasing its NFL linear TV budget by 20% (from $39.4 million to $47.2 million). But if you want to move the chains for your digital platform, you could do a lot worse than sports advertisers new to streaming and used to spending a lot on TV.

With the 2025-26 NFL season right around the corner, it’s time to study the field and draw up a winning playbook.

Note: MediaRadar’s streaming tracking expanded to include Netflix during H2 2022 and Disney+ during H1 2023. Insignificant variance to the number of streaming advertisers. Analysis not adjusted and reflective of current conditions.
advertising operations; ad ops automation
Advertising

What revenue leaders gain from ad ops automation

Growth doesn’t wait. It doesn’t pause for delayed reports or accommodate teams buried in manual tasks. For ad revenue operations, the ability to act fast and decisively is everything.

Yet that ability is often hindered by systems that can’t keep up. Performance data is fragmented. Insights arrive too late to influence outcomes. Campaigns move forward, but the clarity needed to guide them doesn’t. The challenge isn’t ambition, it’s having the infrastructure to match the moment.

This is where automation makes a measurable difference. By centralizing data across the order-to-cash process, it replaces manual workflows with connected, insight-driven ad operations that support every stage of execution. Ad operations teams now move faster and can handle significantly higher volumes without added overhead. For revenue leaders, that means faster delivery, greater throughput, and the ability to realize more revenue, more quickly, without increasing costs.

And the place where that transformation starts, where revenue impact is most often overlooked, is pre-sales.

Where it starts: Pre-sales as a revenue engine

Revenue performance doesn’t start at launch, it starts in pre-sales. This phase shapes deal velocity, win probability, and the data that drives downstream performance. When it’s slow or manual, the entire pipeline feels the impact.

In many organizations, media sales proposals and pitches are still built manually using disconnected tools. Media plans are assembled in static templates. Approvals and contracts crawl through siloed systems. And the materials that support a strong pitch—case studies, screenshots, and past campaign insights—are often scattered across teams, outdated, or hard to access. Each delay slows time-to-close and puts pressure on margins before a campaign even begins.

Instead of spending time pitching, negotiating, and selling, highly compensated sales teams are bogged down by administrative work. Their energy is spent formatting documents, chasing approvals, or searching for assets – tasks that dilute performance and delay revenue. It’s a drain not just on growth potential, but on morale. When talent is buried in low-value tasks, both opportunity and engagement suffer.

Automation removes these delays. Campaign details are pulled directly from intake. Media plans are generated using real-time inputs like inventory, pricing, and past performance. Contracts move faster with integrated e-signature tools.

 For revenue leaders, the impact is clear: faster deal cycles, higher conversion rates, and a pipeline that’s built to scale. And the same automation that accelerates pre-sales also streamlines execution once the work begins.

What ad operations automation changes in execution

Even when campaigns start strong, execution can slow them down. Teams lose time to reactive fixes, delayed handoffs, and siloed systems. Progress stalls when performance issues aren’t caught early.

Automation resolves those inefficiencies. Campaign setup becomes more consistent. QA and trafficking run faster with fewer errors. Tasks that once required multiple check-ins happen in sequence, with cleaner execution.

Work moves faster and with less friction. For revenue leaders, that means fewer delays, earlier course correction, and more predictable delivery.

Closing the visibility gap

But execution is only part of the equation. Without real-time insight into pacing, performance, and risk, even the best-run campaigns can fall short.

That’s where automation delivers strategic value. By syncing data across systems, it creates a unified view of campaign performance. Leaders don’t need to wait for weekly updates or cross-team reports. They can act in the moment.

This kind of visibility shortens the distance between signal and response. It enables better pacing decisions, sharper forecasting, and stronger margins. Our research found that 85% of advertising professionals believe automation reduces costs and increases efficiency. These benefits directly strengthen revenue performance.

That level of insight is foundational for scaling.

How automation unlocks scalable execution

Sustained growth requires more than high-performing teams. It requires systems that can keep pace with rising demand. For many media organizations, that’s where scaling efforts stall. Capacity becomes harder to plan. Delivery timelines stretch. Margin pressure increases.

Ad operations automation changes what’s possible. By eliminating repetitive work and standardizing core processes, it reduces the operational drag that slows down growth. Teams can manage more volume without compromising consistency or adding cost.

It’s not about doing the same work faster. It’s about creating infrastructure that supports scale with discipline. For revenue leaders, that means more predictable delivery, fewer operational risks, and the ability to grow without constantly expanding headcount.

And it doesn’t have to happen all at once. Many organizations start with a high-friction area, like pre-sales or campaign setup and expand from there. This kind of phased approach lowers risk, speeds up ROI, and gives revenue teams a flexible way to scale smarter.

Why visibility is revenue leadership’s edge

For revenue leaders, delayed insight leads to delayed action. When data is scattered or slow to surface, decisions are made with uncertainty. And that uncertainty shows up in missed targets, reduced margins, and slower growth.

Ad operations automation changes that by making campaign and performance data available in real time, across the entire order-to-cash process. Leaders can see what’s working, what’s not, and where to take action, without waiting on reports or chasing updates across teams.

It’s not just faster access to data. It’s the ability to lead with clarity. When the full picture is visible, decisions get sharper, timing gets tighter, and results get stronger.

Automation that delivers on revenue

Automation in Ad Rev Ops isn’t about fixing processes. It’s about improving performance. Ad operations automation shortens deal cycles, reduces delivery risk, and exposes what’s working while there’s still time to act.

For revenue leaders, the upside is real. Faster decisions. Tighter forecasts. More control over margin and outcomes. In a market where hesitation costs, automation gives you leverage – and a path to profitable growth.

pop art signs saying do not scrape
AI | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Why ‘do not scrape’ policies matter more than you think

It’s easy to feel like publishers have little recourse to the fast-track of AI adoption. Big Tech keeps updating its offerings, cribbing more content, clobbering website traffic, and battling for legal traction. This is a wake-up call.  

On the other side, consumers keep changing their consumption habits. They increasingly turn to AI for search. They accept the answers provided by AI Overviews (even if they know about AI hallucinations), and reduce their click-throughs to publishers.

Suffice to say, we’re in the messy middle. Media companies and independent publishers have been left to fend for themselves.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Publishers are better off working together to set standards for what they want when it comes to AI, from negotiations to government legislation, rather than piecemeal settlements and implementation that might not always go our way. One way we can proactively do just that: Consider setting an industry standard for do-not-scrape policies.

This isn’t the time to sit back while AI companies help themselves to the internet’s creative work. At Raptive, we work with publishers to find ways to help them better protect their content and prepare for what’s next.

Do not scrape

Blocking AI crawlers from sites isn’t new. Publishers have been doing so for years. As Axios reported in 2023, per Originality.AI data, some 20% of the top 1000 websites have been blocking crawlers from their sites. Back in August of that year, after OpenAI announced its GPTBot crawler, major news publishers like The New York Times, Reuters and CNN, among others, made public that they would block the crawler from their sites.

The publishers aren’t alone in pushing back against the scraping. Last week, Cloudflare rolled out a new a permission-based system for AI crawlers, becoming the first internet infrastructure provider to block AI crawlers by default.

Reddit, meanwhile, has been waging its own battle against content scraping. Last June, for example, the company updated its robot exclusion protocol to have firmer restrictions against the third-party companies that crawl the company’s content; this followed the shift to charge for API access, enabling the company to monetize its vast user-generated content and control how AI companies use its data for model training. Earlier this month, Reddit filed suit against AI company Anthropic with claims that the company had “obtained access or tried to obtain access to Reddit data more than 100,000 times,” reported The New York Times.

Until recently, crawlers’ main function seemed to benefit publishers and platforms alike: traffic. Sites allowed their content to be crawled, and in doing so, they would get the monetizable eyeballs they relied upon. Robot.txt code allowed publishers and platforms to make clear who could scrape their content and what they could do with it.

That gets a lot more complicated when AI companies are the ones doing the scraping. They take content without permission and use it to benefit their companies without compensating the publishers, platforms, or creators. Even with do-not-scrape policies in place, AI companies have been reportedly trying to get around those policies to continue scraping the content and using it for their benefit.

And while Google does allow publishers to opt out of AI training and Gemini app inclusion, avoiding AI Overviews and the newer AI Mode requires opting out of all Google Search indexing—a rigid all-or-nothing approach, despite Google considering but ultimately rejecting more flexible, a la carte controls that we believe publishers deserve. 

If AI companies are crawling content, serving AI Overviews and link-less search replies that cut traffic to websites without crediting or compensating the originators of that content for said content, it’s only a matter of time until the very companies AI is scraping no longer exist. Figuring out a model for compensation for publishers, platforms and creators isn’t tomorrow’s issue–it’s today’s survival.

The future of the internet

Media companies can’t ignore tanking traffic and stolen content and hope these issues will solve themselves. Publishers need to be proactive and meet the moment. They must not only protect their content but also their brands, livelihoods, and the future of the internet. They need to be prepared for the potential legal battles that they will need to fight to ensure that their content isn’t endlessly scraped. We’re urging others to meet this moment head-on.

The future of the web shouldn’t just reward a few players who happened to move fast on AI adoption. Publishers need to remember the lessons of the print-to-digital shift: This is another seismic turning point, and getting left behind again isn’t an option. 

This text is provided for human readers at dcn.org only. Any automated reuse for AI model training is explicitly prohibited.

Concept art showing areas of AI governance
AI | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

From policy to practice: Responsible media AI implementation

As artificial intelligence becomes more embedded in editorial and business processes, media companies face increased pressure to ensure AI is implemented responsibly. This requires companies to develop a plan for AI use that covers several areas including bias mitigation, risk management, legal compliance and long-term governance.

In my last article, I shared real-world examples of how media companies are implementing ethical AI best practices for transparency and disclosures, bias and ongoing staff education. Here we go deeper into the steps media companies are taking to reduce risk, protect privacy and maintain editorial oversight while integrating AI tools into their processes. Together, these form the eight pillars of ethical AI.

Ethical guidelines and standards

Establishing clear policies that define how AI is used across editorial, marketing and operational teams is essential to increasing transparency and building trust with audiences. Already, some media leaders have not only created policies around AI usage but share them publicly – which offer some great examples to other organizations grappling with AI governance.

The New York Times outlines its AI policies as part of its ethical journalism handbook, which was developed for its editorial and opinion teams and is available to the public. The guidelines state the importance of human oversight and adhering to established standards for journalism and editing.

The Financial Times also made its AI governance publicly available by sharing its principles in articles that outline specific tools staff are integrating into their workflows. It also discusses its investment in skill development and how it has transformed into a company committed to AI fluency and innovation.

Media companies need to develop formal AI ethics guidelines that help guide staff and increase transparency with the public. However, it’s equally important to regularly evaluate these guidelines as technology evolves.

Rights and permissions

As part of their governance strategy, companies must also take steps to ensure that any content produced through AI does not infringe on intellectual property rights or violate content licensing agreements. This means securing applicable rights and permissions to use the information generated by the AI tools and creating internal processes to ensure that AI outputs do not use third-party content without permission.

The New York Times encourages staff to use AI to create content including quizzes, quote cards and FAQs. However, its guidelines state that copyrighted material should not be input into AI tools, which prevents potential misuse of third-party content in AI training.

The Guardian outlines its commitment to protecting content creators’ rights when selecting third-party AI tools by stating it will only use tools that have addressed permission, transparency and fair reward for content usage.

These practices can reduce risk and reinforce a publisher’s commitment to responsible content development.

Accountability and human oversight

Even sophisticated AI systems can produce biased, inaccurate or misleading output. To safeguard against this, media companies should take a “human-in-the-loop” approach and assign qualified individuals to oversee AI tools at every stage of use.

Bay City News, a San Francisco Bay area nonprofit news organization, maintains audience transparency by publicly sharing how the team uses AI including in-depth context about the process behind each project. When it created its award-winning election results hub using AI, human oversight including fact-checking was a vital part of the project’s success.

While BBC prohibits the use of AI to directly create news content, AI use in other areas such as research must be actively monitored and the outcomes assessed by an editor.

Wired also does not create content directly from AI, but the company states that if AI is used to suggest headlines or social media posts, an editor needs to approve the final choice for accuracy.

Privacy and data protection

As readers grow more concerned about how their personal data is collected and used, publishers must take steps to ensure that AI tools are deployed in ways that maintain legal compliance. AI governance must include the development of transparent data collection policies and adhering to privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA.

Graham Media Group, a Detroit-based media company, prioritizes reader privacy and security and shares its compliance with data privacy laws on its disclosure page and in its privacy policy. The company also uses an in-house AI tool to help employees streamline their workflows without relying on free AI tools or unsecured platforms.

BBC states in its responsible AI policy that if staff intend to include personal data in an AI tool, a data protection impact assessment must be completed prior to use.

Risk management and adaptation

Using AI introduces a range of potential risks such as bias and fairness that must be actively managed. Effective AI governance requires continuous monitoring and a proactive approach to identifying and addressing these risks.

BBC created its AI Risk Advisory Group that includes subject matter experts from legal, data protection, commercial and business affairs and editorial departments. The group provides detailed advice on potential risks of using AI in both the newsroom and across the company.

As AI technologies evolve, so must the ethical frameworks that support their use. By integrating ethical AI principles into daily operations, media organizations can protect their brands, maintain audience trust and demonstrate their value to advertisers and partners who seek reliable, trusted media environments.

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