Packaging the AI playbook

Publishers aren’t just trying to get cited in AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews — some are looking at how they convert that playbook into a product they can sell to brands.

Instead of just optimizing their own headlines and structured data for generative engine optimization (GEO), they’re offering brands a similar roadmap: how to show up, get cited and stay visible inside AI-generated responses.

It’s a notable twist. The same companies grappling with shrinking referral traffic and opaque AI algorithms are positioning themselves as translators of that black box — turning hard-won experimentation with prompts, schema and authority signals into a new service line. In an era where discovery is fragmenting and answers are synthesized, visibility inside the AI layer is becoming a product.

It’s also another sign of how publishers aren’t just chasing ad dollars anymore, but finding new revenue streams in the AI era.

Nina Gould, chief innovation officer at Forbes, told Digiday the publisher is hearing more direct questions about how its content surfaces relative to competitors, and how clients’ branded and native content performs against prompts aligned to their campaign objectives. Forbes ranks as the most-cited publisher in ChatGPT, according to an analysis by AI search optimization company Profound. 

“We have already seen this translate into meaningful value for our longstanding branded content partners. As answer-engine discovery becomes more measurable and strategic, we believe it will play a meaningful role in how publishers demonstrate impact to marketers,” Gould said. “While we’re not currently packaging this as a standalone product, we see clear opportunity.”

Future — which also owns U.S. titles including Tom’s Guide, Who What Wear, Marie Claire, and Ideal Home in the U.K. — is already doing this. As Digiday reported last month, Future is selling its proprietary AI visibility tool Future Optic as part of branded content packages to brand clients to boost AI summary citations. It works to increase the volume of mentions and citations in AI search engines like Google’s AI Overviews and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It’s selling this to clients in telecomm, CPG, luxury and beauty categories, including Samsung.

With the erosion of search referral traffic for publishers, what began as a defensive effort to bolster their own visibility in AI search engines has evolved into an offering for clients — being able to package prompt testing, structured data strategies and editorial best practices into services brands can buy. Both brands and publishers are figuring out how to navigate an AI-driven discovery ecosystem where being linked matters less than being referenced.

This also signals publishers’ increased push into GEO, especially as some like Forbes and Future actively work to lessen their reliance on Google search referral traffic. What was once dismissed as premature is quickly becoming table stakes for others — not just for editorial teams, but for the brands that want to show up in AI-generated answers. 

Prasanna Dhungel, managing partner at marketing intelligence firm GrowByData, said these kinds of new services publishers are developing could be useful for agencies that want to link brands with publishers to boost AI citations, and help drive customers to their products through those paid campaigns. For example, Future was able to drive a 28% growth in AI citations from Future sources for a branded campaign with Samsung in three months, Future’s CRO Michael Peralta previously told Digiday.

“If publishers make placements [in LLMs] easy and cost effective… I can see brands jump to that,” said Dhungel. 

Alicia Gehring, svp of media strategy at independent ad agency White64, told Digiday that if these services can show how sponsored content can improve a brand’s AI visibility, it would be an additional incentive to prioritize publisher brand campaigns.

Publishers aren’t the only ones to jump on the commercial opportunity. 

Agencies and marketing services firms have launched their own tools to help brands see how they’re represented in AI-powered search results, such as Digitas’ Model Sight and similar offerings from Jellyfish, Botify and others that track AI search visibility, Digiday has previously reported. 

However, some have struggled to turn those tools into sustainable revenue – clients saw limited results from these insights alone. 

Whether selling GEO strategy can plug the gap made by the sharp erosion of referral traffic, caused by Google AI Overviews and other search engines, is unlikely. But it’s more of a signal that publishers are getting savvier about how to operate in this new AI-powered distribution era. 

What we’ve heard

“[OpenPath] has given us a direct contact [at The Trade Desk]. We used to get this money through the SSPs, from many different ways. If we saw a drop, the SSP would go, ‘I don’t know.’ And now we can go to The Trade Desk and say, ‘OK, we saw a drop. What is that attributed to?’ And they can bring that back to us and say, ‘OK, actually, it was this brand or whatever.’ So having that contact at The Trade Desk has been really helpful to us. There used to be a black box before.”

– Ed Arrandale, vp of revenue and operations at WeatherBug

Numbers to know

$350 million: The amount of a new investment in The New York Times from Berkshire Hathaway.

50%: The percentage of Latino or Hispanic union members who were laid off at The Washington Post.

15%: The percentage of staff CBS News is considering letting go.

83%: The percentage of Americans who don’t pay for news, according to a Pew Research study

What we’ve covered

Subscriptions are rising at big news publishers – even as traffic shrinks

• Subscription growth isn’t just continuing, it’s speeding up. Digiday analyzed the subscription and paid reader revenue trends among major news publishers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Media, The Guardian and Daily Mail.
• Rather than undercutting prices to chase growth, many are leaning into higher-value positioning and introductory offers designed to convert (and keep) paying readers – and this strategy is helping to stabilize news publishers’ businesses amid volatile referral traffic.

Read more here.

WTF is Markdown for AI Agents?

• Cloudflare’s new Markdown for Agents feature is an example of the common language used by AI systems and agents, when HTML alone isn’t enough.
• It’s a way to convert HTML into a structured language that’s easier for AI systems and agents to ingest and understand, making content more discoverable and efficient for AI consumption

Read more here.

How the creator economy showed up at the Super Bowl

• At this year’s Super Bowl, brands leaned heavily into creator partnerships and live activations.
• The event underscored how the creator economy has become central to big brand moments, with marketers prioritizing experiential content, social distribution and talent deals.

Read more here.

What we’re reading

FT joins Google’s AI pilot program

The Financial Times is the latest publisher to join Google’s AI commercial pilot program, which already includes The Guardian and The Washington Post, Press Gazette reported.

How The New York Times is tracking “the manosphere” using AI

The New York Times built an internal AI-powered “Manosphere Report” that uses LLMs to transcribe and summarize dozens of podcasts to spot trends and shifts in conservative media, Nieman Lab reported.

Apple challenges YouTube, Spotify with new video podcasting push

Apple announced that it’s rolling out a revamped video podcast experience in Apple Podcasts this spring to let users watch and listen within the app and offer creators new monetization tools, competing with YouTube and Spotify, CNBC reported.

The Guardian launches new daily podcast

The Guardian is launching a new daily video podcast in the U.S. later this year with a 10-person team, expanding its audio and video journalism and competing with shows like The New York Times’ popular podcast “The Daily,” Semafor reported.

Ars Technica retracts AI-generated article

Condé Nast-owned tech publication Ars Technica retracted a story after it published fabricated quotations generated by an AI tool falsely attributed to a real person, according to 404 Media.