5 Factors for 2025 – Factor 3: Generative AI’s Influence on Publisher Operations

To say the digital publishing industry is in flux is an understatement. Over the past year, publishers have faced a wave of challenges. We’ve seen revenue impacts from emerging technologies, watched Google’s on-again, off-again approach to cookie deprecation, observed shifts in consumer behavior that required quick adaptation, and much more.

To gain a deeper and more systematic understanding of how media companies and publishers are navigating these changes, we conducted focus group-style survey interviews with 31 industry leaders.

In this blog, we cover the third factor: Generative AI’s Influence on Publisher Operations.

Generative AI is fundamentally changing how publishers operate, create content, and reach audiences. While some publishers see opportunities in AI-powered personalization and multi-format content delivery, others worry about the industry’s ability to adapt quickly enough to those changes.

Opportunity: Content Format Transformation 

AI tools let publishers convert content between formats — text, audio and video, as well as languages — seamlessly. Our participants explained that these tools can provide audiences content in their preferred format without ballooning production costs.

“AI changes how news can be delivered: Audio, visual, automated, algorithmic, multi-lingual, and more. This is a window to convert the way news is delivered from words and pictures to something more compelling, via audio and visual.” — Ricky Sutton, Founder, Future Media

“The biggest immediate opportunity generative AI presents lies in filling the holes within editorial operations… Brands hoping to reach new audiences that speak different languages can add near instantaneous translation services… a commuter late for the local bus could simply ask their computer to ‘make a 15-minute podcast out of the rest of this, summarizing the technical jargon for me.'” — Jeremy Kaplan, Content Director, Future PLC

Opportunity: Audience Engagement and Personalization

Some participants told us that their organizations are investing in LLM capabilities to create TikTok-style personalization and real-time revenue optimization. While many publishers lack this capability, our participants recognized the need to rethink content strategy to compete with AI offerings.

“We are investing in cognitive LLM capabilities for smarter user pathing offering a more personalized experience & significantly moving our RPS from where it is today (dirty secret, most pubs can’t/don’t track that, esp in real time. Think TikTok & Meta for the web.” Jason C. White, Chief Product & Technology Officer, The Arena Group

“Publishers are going to need to radically rethink their content strategy, site and app features and monetization strategy. We will need to offer tailored, unique, and indispensable content and experiences in order to compete with the increasingly deep and comprehensive AI-generated offerings.” — (Anonymous) Nina Gould

Mixed Outlook: Operational Efficiencies and Cost Implications 

Many participants acknowledged AI’s power to create workflow efficiencies but thought these changes may not translate to increased profits. This is especially true, one respondent pointed out, as vendors increase their prices for AI-enhanced tools.

“The LLMs don’t know what their costs will settle down to be… whatever economics we were able to unlock because of efficiencies from AI powered tools will flow into their pockets. Plus, current tech providers will build AI-powered capabilities to make their current products better and will jack their prices accordingly.” — Sherrick Chavda, Group Director of Audience & Data Strategy, Initiative

“I think the immediate use cases for AI will be around efficiency. It is not clear yet if more growth oriented use cases will emerge for publishers.” — Jeremy Hlavacek, Former Chief Commercial Officer, Experian 

“Gen AI is moving very fast and it’s hard to predict exactly how it will impact things. It certainly will make back office functions work better and faster.” — Paul Bannister, Chief Strategy Officer, Raptive

“With AI it gives publishers the ability to better personalize the experience in a more efficient way then they have had the ability to do in the past. The risk around AI for publishers comes more from the potential threat of the search engines that will no longer drive traffic to these properties like they used to.” – Sid Sapru, Chief Operations Officer, OpenWeb

Potential Downsides: Search and Discovery Challenges

Many participants pointed out the challenges of generative-AI search, which are well known and have been discussed widely in the industry (earlier this year Adweek reported that these developments threatened 60% of publisher revenue).

“I think a greater threat looms for publishers, depending on how their readers reach their content. Generative AI is transforming search before our very eyes, and a change to the discoverability of publisher content could have damaging effects on traffic, which will have knock-on effects on revenue and, eventually brand relevance.” — Pete Beeney, SVP US Country Manager, Factor Eleven

“Audience and pageviews will decline and evolve into secular declines. CPMs will increase modestly, but not enough to offset ad revenue losses. Subscription business will begin to be negatively impacted.” — Anonymous (Jay Glogovsky)

Potential Downsides: Industry Upheaval and Transformation

The industry is facing pretty significant disruptions that will require publishers to make fundamental changes to survive. Some experts on our panel expressed deep concern about the pace and scale of changes publishers now need to accommodate.

“Publishers are going to need to radically rethink their content strategy, site and app features and monetization strategy. We will need to offer tailored, unique, and indispensable content and experiences in order to compete with the increasingly deep and comprehensive AI-generated offerings. The next few years are going to completely disrupt and reorder our industry. I doubt we will recognize what comes out on the other side.” — Anonymous (Nina Gould)

“I have very little optimism for publishers based on how historically slow they have been to adopt EVERY other consumer trend (long-form to short form, written word to video, author to celebrity, web to mobile, free to paywall).” — (Anonymous) James Gyngell

You can download the full 5 Factors for 2025 report on our website.