Original reporting is table stakes for publishers in an AI world

As AI-generated content proliferates, publishers are hoping that original reporting, human connection, and trust will help differentiate their output – and ultimately convince more people to pay for access to it.

Commoditized content is becoming increasingly difficult to monetize sustainably, whether through advertising, subscriptions, or any other means. Publishers are now recognizing that their futures hinge on the ability to uncover new information and contextualize and present it in ways that artificial intelligence cannot.

“The premium for people who can tell you things you do not know will only grow in importance, and no machine will do that,” Axios chief executive Jim VandeHei told the New York Times last week, adding that AI will “eviscerate the weak, the ordinary, the unprepared in media.”

That evisceration may already be underway, with a growing number of publishers being forced to downsize their operations as interest in their output dwindles. Discussions around the merits of subscriptions and other business models may also be distracting from the underlying reality that some publishers are not currently producing the types of content that will enable them to survive the technological and distribution shifts of the next few years.

However, for publishers of original, high-quality reporting and analysis, the proliferation of AI-generated content presents an opportunity — and perhaps a necessity — to position themselves as essential resources for navigating AI-driven noise. It might also aid their efforts to build direct paying relationships with audiences.

To that end, Axios is planning more live events and expanding Axios Pro, its collection of high-end subscription newsletters focused on specific niches in the deals and policy world. It also plans to launch a series of $1,000-a-year membership products centered around some of its higher-profile journalists.

Other publishers have expressed similar sentiments. “AI is almost certainly going to usher in an unprecedented torrent of crap… I suspect you’re going to need to use [publishers’] brands as proxies for trust,” New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger said during The International News Media Association’s last World Congress. The Times has been taking a variety of measures to emphasize that its content is created by humans, including more detailed bylines and surfacing more information about its news and information-gathering processes.

Illustrating Sulzberger’s point, the Wall Street Journal said last week it created a fully automated, AI-generated news site capable of publishing thousands of articles a day for just $105. The site rewrote news articles from legitimate publications without credit and with a partisan slant specifically requested by its creators.

Publishing platform Medium has also reacted to an influx of AI content on its platform, telling contributors last week that AI-generated writing must not be paywalled and is not eligible for its revenue-sharing partner program. In other words, it wants to offer paying subscribers access to exclusively human-generated content.

AI presents a significant threat for some publishers, but those capable of consistently uncovering new information and delivering high-quality, differentiated analysis and context remain best positioned to survive and thrive in an AI world, even if there are far fewer of them.

As VandeHei puts it: “Fast forward five to 10 years from now and we’re living in this A.I.-dominated virtual world — who are the couple of players in the media space offering smart, sane content who are thriving? It damn well better be us.”