How AI is Helping Newsrooms to Stay Relevant
What grabs your attention while scrolling through the news, a catchy headline, a striking image, or a trusted media house name? Publications around the world are trying to crack the code on this one. But here’s the twist: AI-powered search is changing the game for newsrooms. A recent Reuters report warned that the shift towards AI-generated, ‘story-like’ answers to news queries could further erode visibility for media outlets already grappling with traffic loss. AIM reached out to several media houses to dig deeper into the ‘dance of the algorithm’. In an exclusive conversation with AIM, Vignesh Vellore, founder and CEO of The News Minute, said, “Until about two years ago, we operated as a traditional, ad-driven digital news website. Our primary focus was on increasing website traffic, ensuring more people landed on our platform, often by publishing a higher volume of content.” However, in the past two years, they’ve pivoted to a reader-revenue model in response to declining search traffic—a trend corroborated by the Reuters report. The report highlighted a significant drop in traffic from Google Search and social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Aligning with this shift, they’ve eliminated programmatic ads and concentrated entirely on subscription and membership-based revenue. “This approach helps us build a dedicated, engaged audience—a community of readers who value in-depth reporting and exclusive content,” Vellore said. Instead of chasing higher traffic with more frequent publications, the focus is now on detailed reporting, interviews, and dedicated shows. While this may result in lower traffic volumes, it improves conversion rates and encourages readers to subscribe and actively engage with our platform. Gloria Methri, a reporter at IBS Intelligence, told AIM, “We noticed a decline in viewership last year. In response, we shifted our focus from B2C to B2B. By targeting a more niche audience, we were able to narrow down our readership and better cater to their needs.” AI Enters Newsroom According to a Reuters report, from back-end automation (deemed “very important” by 60% of publishers) to daily workflows powered by AI toolkits, the adoption of AI is skyrocketing across news organisations. A striking 87% of respondents said that generative AI is transforming newsrooms to varying degrees, leaving just 13% unconvinced or, perhaps, yet to catch up. Source: Reuters Report Speaking on this, Vellore explained, “We don’t use AI in our newsroom to generate content or increase publishing volume. Instead, we leverage AI for support tasks, such as reviewing content for quality and automating newsletters. AI also plays a role in running campaigns for special projects, helping us craft messaging, identify target audiences, and plan outreach.” He further added that looking ahead, AI-driven engagement tools will be explored for members. For instance, The News Minute is considering an automated, AI-powered FAQ system on its website to assist potential and current members with queries about offerings and subscriptions. This would provide a seamless experience without requiring manual intervention. Elaborating on the use of AI in newsrooms, Bhavyata Kagrana, assistant producer at CNBC-TV18, told AIM, “Write-ups can now be easily enhanced. Time has become a crucial factor, as a simple draft can quickly be transformed into polished, professional language. Additionally, AI has made structuring content significantly easier.” Media Partnership with Tech Highlighting a shift in search behaviour, Vicky Mallick, former SEO expert at Forbes, said, “Users now lean heavily on Google’s AI-generated overviews, which summarise key information directly in search snippets. This has driven up impressions for top-ranking pages, especially those featured in AI overviews. However, click-through rates (CTR) are dropping as these summaries often fulfil user queries without the need to visit the source.” He added that this trend impacts informational queries the most, while commercial keywords remain resilient due to ad-driven dynamics. For media houses, the challenge is evident, declining website traffic for news articles, partly due to tools like ChatGPT, which offer quick answers with source links. This begs the question: could partnerships with AI platforms like OpenAI help media outlets stay relevant? Offering a contrarian perspective, Vellore said, “We’ve shifted focus away from search traffic, which typically brings transient visitors. Instead, we’re prioritising a dedicated audience—readers who value our work and engage deeply. Paywalls cater to this core group, fostering long-term relationships over fleeting clicks.” Vellore also emphasised their strict stance against letting AI models like OpenAI or Perplexity train on their data, signalling a commitment to direct engagement over search-driven discovery. Interestingly, OpenAI has secured major licensing deals, including a $250 million agreement with News Corp (owner of The Wall Street Journal and The Times), alongside partnerships with Reuters, AP, Financial Times, and Le Monde. What’s Next? It is still early to draw definitive conclusions about trends that will define website or news article traffic. However, it is evident that AI is here to stay. There is a shift in the search landscape, with alternatives like Bing and ChatGPT gaining traction, even as Google retains its dominant market share. As per SEO experts, to address these challenges, the fundamental principles of optimisation, such as incorporating primary keywords in title tags, headers, and content structure, will remain critical. For media houses particularly, managing gated content for subscription purposes requires careful technical handling. For example, while it is important to index such content for visibility, it should be excluded from AI-generated overviews to preserve its exclusivity. Media houses and content creators must adapt their strategies to navigate these changes, ensuring they balance visibility in AI-driven search features while safeguarding their proprietary content.
Instead of chasing higher traffic with more frequent publications, the focus is now on detailed reporting, interviews, and dedicated shows.
Reuters report highlighted a significant drop in traffic from Google Search and social platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
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Vidyashree is enthusiastic about investigative journalism. Now trying to explore how AI solves for all.