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digital publishing industries

AI In The Newsroom, As Perceived (And Preferred) By Audiences

A recent Pew Research survey of AI experts and the general public highlighted just how far apart those two factions were in terms of their optimism and concerns, respectively, regarding AI’s impact in the coming years.

One aspect that both were closer in agreement about was the job-reducing impact AI might have on careers such as software engineers, factory workers, and even journalists.

Further research recently released by Poynter and the University of Minnesota is helping to illuminate why the public may not be ready for AI in the newsroom, as nearly half of those surveyed said they don’t want news from a genAI chatbot, plain and simple.

 

AI At Work: Navigating Employee Backlash And Implementation Challenges

41% of C-suite executives said adopting generative AI (genAI) is tearing their company apart and creating power struggles, per Writer’s 2025 Generative AI Adoption in the Enterprise survey. 31% of employees admit to sabotaging their company’s genAI strategy, with higher percentages among younger workers, the survey found.

 

Email Marketing Statistics: survey results and insights

Most people check their inboxes because they use email at work. But 41% of our survey participants said they log into email to keep in touch with family and friends. Also, 41% of them are looking for discounts. While flooding your subscribers with emails isn’t a good idea, remember to send emails regularly.

 

On The Mark Martech: Enterprise Retailers Spell Out Specific Needs

Enterprise retailers need more than data to prevail in today’s environment, judging by a new study from MessageGears, conducted with Hanover Research. But they know it, and many have very clear demands when investing in martech technology. First is flexibility: 70% want to integrate additional components as the brand’s needs evolve — when they’re ready.

Positive AI Impacts: Bridging The Opinion-Divide Between Experts And The Public

Whether the criteria is “blogs devoted to the topic” or “tools built specially for publishers,” I’d like to consider myself high on both lists of AI-passionate and AI-empowering people out there.

And while that enthusiasm puts me in good company with the AI experts recently analyzed in Pew Research Center’s latest survey, it also puts me a ways away from the general public that the survey was rightfully using as its foundation.

According to the survey, 57% of AI experts — defined by Pew Research Center as “individuals whose work or research relates to AI” — believe AI will have a very or somewhat positive impact on the United States over the next 20 years, contrasted by just 17% of the general public it surveyed.

 

Navigating Google’s Cookie U-Turn: Where Do Publishers And Advertisers Go From Here?

Publishers have long followed the will they, won’t-they breakup drama between Google and its data-collecting cookies, and just as it appeared that the tech giant was ready to phase them out eventually, the company announced recently that, no, they’re canceling that phase-out plan and keeping them after all. 

Having a hard time keeping up? You’re not alone. 

If nothing else, just know Google has forever ruined the dessert’s good name.

 

Can GenAI Close The Gap Between Online and In-Store Experiences?

Shoppers want their online experience to feel as personal and intuitive as walking into their favorite store. GenAI holds massive potential to meet these expectations, but the secret to seamlessly integrating it into shopping experiences can still be a challenge … Still, our survey highlights that the appetite for GenAI is undeniable: 62% of shoppers are more likely to buy when guided by tools that help them find exactly what they need, and 61% would use a virtual assistant for instant answers.

 

Special Me: Consumers Expect More Tailored Experiences

Marketers can take heart in a new finding from Klaviyo — that 72% of consumers plan to increase or keep up their spending on personal or lifestyle purchases over the next six months. But there is one downside to this report: that while 74% of consumers expect more personalized experiences in 2025, only 34% have had one of these experiences in the past half year.

AI, Digital Advertising, And The Advantages Of Early Adoption

While it sure feels like everyone in publishing is using AI — and it absolutely feels like everyone in publishing is at least talking about their future alongside and with AI — it’s important to remember that it’s not yet completely omnipresent.

In fact, Interactive Advertising Bureau’s recent “State of Data” report found that 70% of agencies, brands, and publishers have not yet integrated AI fully into their campaigns.

Digital Publisher Display Revenues Stabilise For First Time In Two Years

There are tentative signs that publishers may soon be free from these revenue doldrums. In recent years, plummeting display advertising revenues have cancelled out growth achieved across other revenue streams but, in Q4 2024 — for the first time since Q1 2023 — they didn’t budge. Fingers crossed that this continues.

 

The State Of Marketing And AI

The impact of AI goes beyond saving time. 82% of marketers say it frees them to do more exciting work. But the bigger shift is in how teams now approach their craft — finding new ways to be creative, plan campaigns, and work alongside AI to get better results.

 

55% of Americans Say the Way They Search for Information Online Has Changed Over the Last Five Years

Nearly half of consumers (44%) discover new products or bands through online ads and one-third (33%) discover new products through search engines — representing an opportunity for brands to use open web channels to capture the attention of additional consumers.

The Future With AI, According To Media Unions

When thinking about AI in publishing, most of my focus is on the potential that AI tools have for all all departments. Even editorial departments, full of journalists that audiences count on to be professionally skeptical, can find value in the technology’s capabilities to complement the hard work they do.

A recent Digital Journalism article took a closer look at the messages that news media unions are sending about genAI, ultimately finding what authors Mike Ananny and Jake Carr break down as “six areas where news media unions are focusing their generative AI attention and concern — and, notably, two areas where they’re not.”

 

AI + Humans > Teams? New Harvard Study Shows GenAI Can Be Your ‘Cybernetic Teammate’

You’ve heard of work wives and work husbands, but what about work AIs? A fascinating new Harvard study suggests your AI assistant might be just as valuable as that coworker who always brings snacks to meetings (if not more so).

 

AI In Ecommerce: Shoppers Want Help – Not Decisions Made For Them

AI shopping assistants are popping up everywhere. One minute, you’re browsing for sneakers, and the next, a chatbot is insisting you need five different pairs. Cool tech? Sure. But do shoppers actually trust AI to make decisions for them? Our latest findings reveals that while consumers appreciate AI-driven recommendations and discovery tools, they’re still skeptical about trust, data privacy, and the overall effectiveness of AI’s role in their shopping experience. 

 

2025 Global Customer Engagement Review

When you first meet someone, the conversation is often superficial because you don’t yet know them well. But even small talk — when carried out by an active listener — can lead to deeper insights and more fulfilling conversations. The same is true of customer relationships. As users engage over time, they reveal their true selves to brands that pay attention, supporting enhanced relevance through individually tailored experiences. That, in turn, enables more efficient growth and stronger business outcomes.

Taking On Big Tech: Publishers Raising Red Flags On AI Theft Concerns

With genAI spending expected to increase 76.4% this year to a total of more than $640 billion worldwide, there really is no way to undersell the impact that the technology is already having across every industry. 

Publishing, of course, is no exception, with focus toggling between the AI tools that publishers are already using in many departments to the emerging, even existential concerns about AI’s effect on attribution, search, and the industry in general.

And it’s from that side of the table that news publishers from The New York Times to The Washington Post launched a coordinated ad campaign this week, calling on lawmakers to “make Big Tech pay for the content it takes to run its AI products.”

 

Ex-Google Exec: Giving Traffic To Publishers ‘A Necessary Evil’

Google has been increasingly focused on keeping users inside Google properties, reducing the need to click through to external sites. A former Google senior executive told Bloomberg that supporting publishers was incidental to Google’s larger aims: “Giving traffic to publisher sites is kind of a necessary evil. The main thing they’re trying to do is get people to consume Google services.”

 

The State of AI In Marketing 2025

AI is no longer a futuristic concept, but a necessary tool for marketers to achieve success. From content creation to customer insights, AI’s impact is both broad and deep, promising to change how we approach marketing challenges and opportunities.

 

Online, Offline And Everywhere: Retailers Turn To Connected Commerce

Connected commerce is a hot buzzword in retailing. In 2024, 90.7% of retailers increased their spending on it, and 92.5% expect to allocate more in 2025, for a total of $112 billion, according to a new study from Winterberry Group.

Personalized Advertising, Ad-Blockers, And How Publishers Can Better Handle Both

Publishers are all too familiar with the rock, the hard place, and the struggles of being caught between both.

The rise of ad-blockers has presented one such unwelcoming surface, and a new YouGov study has examined the relationship between that technology and ad personalization.

The “Ad-Verse Reactions” report found that more than half of the Americans surveyed (54%) are creeped out by personalized ads, with 44% of those creeped out taking action by running an ad blocker at all times, no matter what site they visit. 

It’s a “situation that should alarm publishers … not to mention advertisers,” according to MediaPost’s Ray Schultz.

 

A First-Ever Study On Prompts

Wharton researchers just released a fascinating study that questions everything we thought we knew about prompting AI. Spoiler alert: Being polite to Claude or ChatGPT doesn’t always help — and sometimes, it actually hurts.

 

Safety First: Consumers Say A Reputation For Security Helps Them Decide To Use A Brand

Consumers are more worried about online safety — so much so that 86% say an online platform’s reputation for safety and security is key to their deciding to use it, according to a recent study from Trua titled The State of Trust And Safety In Online Marketplaces. 

But it varies by generation. Among the Baby Boomers polled, 93% are likely to agree this is very important, and Millennials and Gen X are also concerned, Gen Z less so.

 

Consumers Swap Brand Loyalty For Product Experimentation

70% of consumers worldwide have switched brands because they enjoy experimenting, according to a January 2025 Capgemini report.

Death By A Million Scrapes: What Publishers Face With The Rapid Increase In AI Scraping

Last week, I wrote about the citation and attribution issues that plague AI chatbots and haunt publishers.

If the rapid, continued growth of scraping is any indication, publishers have a few bulletpoint items to add to their nuanced concerns.

In its State of the Bots Q4 2024 report, Tollbit found that AI scrapes per site doubled from what they were in Q3, with scrapes per page tripling in that time, including 40% more unauthorized scrapes.

 

Most Americans Say They Are Tuned In To News About The Trump Administration

Far fewer are hearing about the administration’s relationship with the media than was the case early in Trump’s first term.

 

Traffic To U.S. Retail Websites From Generative AI Sources Jumps 1,200 Percent

During the holiday shopping season, Adobe observed the first material surge in generative AI traffic to U.S. retail sites (measured by shoppers clicking on a link). Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, 2024, traffic from generative AI sources increased by 1,300 percent compared to the year prior (generative AI traffic was up 1,950 percent YoY on Cyber Monday). The trend has persisted beyond the holiday season. In February 2025, traffic from generative AI sources increased by 1,200 percent compared to July 2024.

 

Getting To Know AI: Consumers Are More Trusting, Are Using It More

People are more trusting of AI — at least moderately so. For instance, 43% of consumers now say they would trust the information given to them by an AI chatbot compared to 40% last year, according to the 2025 Consumer Adoption of AI Report, a multi-market study conducted by Attest.

Consider The Source: What AI’s Attribution Problems Mean For Publishers

Will AI search prove to be the end of Google?

That’s one big question surrounding search, one that would have seemed inconceivable to anyone who had witnessed Google’s decades of dominance. …

Just ask any entry-level chatbot and it’ll give you the generic diagnosis that the landscape of organic search and Google Ads is indeed rapidly changing, but those battles are at least familiar ones for publishers. A more-recent publisher-worry subsequent to this rise of AI is the issue of citation and attribution. When a publisher actually has an answer that an AI chatbot needn’t be forced to hallucinate, does that source get the deserved credit?

 

Publishers Seeing ‘Concerning Trends’ From Advertisers In Current Political Cycle

The Associated Press is among publishers seeing “some concerning trends” around advertisers being wary of working with news providers in the current political news cycle. Chief revenue officer and senior vice president Kristin Heitmann said the US-based news agency has a “significant revenue diversification effort underway” with digital advertising as one of its growing areas.

 

Stacking Up B2B Automation: Most Firms Claim At Least Some Proficiency

B2B brands are at least reasonably proficient at automation, judging by the State of B2B Marketing Automation, a study from Act-On, conducted in partnership with Ascend2. Of the companies polled, 34% rate themselves as very successful at automation, and 62% as somewhat so. Only 4% say they are unsuccessful. 

 

Marketers Chase Better Measurement Across Channels

64% of US ad buyers expect to focus somewhat or significantly more on cross-platform measurement in 2025, according to a December 2024 IAB survey.

Programmatic Advertising To Break The $200 Billion Mark Next Year (New Report)

While programmatic display ad spending growth is forecast to decelerate over the next few years — from the 16.9% seen in 2024 to 11.6% in 2026 — its growth is still enough to “[sustain] a market weighed down by sluggish growth in nonprogrammatic display,” according to EMARKETER.

 

Magazine ABCs 2024: Half Of Print Titles See Distribution Drop 10% Or More

More than half of the magazines audited by ABC saw their print circulation decline by 10% or more in 2024, the latest data show. Several magazines significantly stepped up their digital circulation growth via “all you can read” services like Apple News+ over the same period, but in most cases it has not been enough to cancel out the print decline.

 

2025 Digital Engagement Benchmarks Report

B2B marketers have long known that targeted, personal and relevant experiences are essential to driving revenue. And as webinars have always offered the opportunity for direct interaction with attendees — whether through answering questions, sharing resources or polling the audience — they have consistently been a top-performing channel.

 

Campaign Numbers Rising, But So Are Challenges

Marketers have increased the number of campaigns they run, but face many more challenges when it comes to budgets, technical capabilities, and analyzing and explaining the outcomes to those responsible for allocating budgets. Gartner estimates about 44% of the total marketing budget is spent on campaigns — up by 31% year-over-year — but the majority of survey respondents are dissatisfied with campaign performance.

Reliable Sources: AI, Transparency, And The Uses That Audiences Are Actually Comfortable With

The New York Times recently announced how it will be dipping its toes into the AI pool, incorporating the technology into such operations as social copy and SEO headlines and unveiling a summarization tool for its journalists to “condense Times articles, briefings, and interactives.”

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times basically belly-flopped off the deep-end diving board with this week’s debut of its “Insights” feature, which is intended to bring AI-created perspectives to editorials and commentaries while offering “an annotated summary of the ideas expressed in the piece along with different views on the topic from a variety of sources.” (LA Times union members came out to say they doubt the unvetted AI analysis will “do much to enhance trust in the media,” while outlets like The Guardian were pointing out the dangers of critical articles getting unregulated counterpoint-friendly footnotes … all before the LA Times ultimately removed the feature from at least one article for falling down that precise dangerous trap.)

Between and beyond those two coasts, and along that vast spectrum of AI strategies, publishers are considering how best to take advantage of all that AI has to offer. And with those discussions, it’s increasingly important to weigh not just what it can do for the business-side, but what it will mean for those on the audience-side.

 

Digital Publishing: Outlook and Priorities for 2025

The responses confirm the priority to grow audiences, with 66% of publishers saying that they agree or strongly agree that their approach to increasing revenues will focus on exploring how to leverage their audience engagement to increase advertiser revenues. Publishers recognise the value of their quality content — with 52% planning to increase content output and 40% focused on changing the type of content they produce to attract more readers or viewers. 

 

State of Commerce Advertising

In the last quarter, blogs, search and product listings made significant strides, joining the consistently strong performance of influencers as top revenue drivers. In contrast, coupon pages and loyalty programs have experienced a noticeable decline.

 

All Hands On Board: B2B Firms Struggle To Process New Customers

B2B brands may be effective on the marketing front end. But they have a problem once they have attracted new customers: onboarding them, according to The Future of Customer Onboarding 2025, a study by Moxo. Of the companies polled, 56% have delays in processing new clients.