"Investment will accelerate in behind-the-scenes tools for journalists, smarter CMS tools, AI-powered audience tools and decision-making tools."
From The Mill and others moving to Ghost, the Bristol Cable launching their own app, us giving Blog Preston a major revamp and adding a membership model, major investment to The i’s look and feel, to Reach bringing in a premium offering, expect the acceleration in investment in both under-the-bonnet and customer-facing improvements to publishers’ tech.
While what happens off-platform becomes harder to second-guess, readers and audiences who come directly are increasingly aligned with membership and subscription offerings. Those who take these people for granted will struggle, but those who embrace, reward and give the best possible experience will be able to build a direct connection with their audience, which isn’t beholden to the whims of the tech platforms.
And that investment will also accelerate in behind-the-scenes tools for journalists, smarter CMS tools, AI-powered audience tools and decision-making tools. The volume and quality of data at the fingertips of journalists and editors will only become more powerful.
We'll also see publishers increasingly mimic the social and distribution tactics utilised by creators (the breadcrumbing of a story will become incredibly frequent). The power of AI tools will mean search and AI results will become digests of social posts, video content and website articles, which will send chills through anyone reliant on search and Discover referrals. In the UK, the time for warm words about the future of local journalism will be over. All eyes will be on Lisa Nandy as the UK government outlines their Local News Strategy. Will they be bold?
My personal hope rather than prediction is we'll see some kind of innovation funding to help publishers of all shapes and sizes to work through that increasingly fragmented distribution landscape and the technological challenges they bring for content creation and distribution.
2026 will be increasingly messy and increasingly fragmented. But we have got a World Cup to look forward to.