Weekly Digest, Issue #181, 18 July 2026
Stop trying to be an "AI company". The future belongs to "OI companies" that treat first-hand origination as their primary asset and use AI merely as a tool to scale it.
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Weekly Digest, Issue #180, 4 July 2026
Mather Economics data challenge the notion that platform disruption (e.g., changes in social media or search algorithms) is the sole cause of audience decline.
Weekly Digest, Issue #179, 27 June 2026
Why asking whether AI is better at our jobs than us is misleading: Shifting our view from thinking in terms of tasks to thinking in terms of systems
Weekly Digest, Issue #178, 20 June 2026
The Reuters Institute's DRN report identifies 2026 as a milestone year in which pathways between journalism and the public have become less direct and more fragmented. Audiences are increasingly drifting away from "owned and operated" branded properties.
Weekly Digest, Issue #177, 14 June 2026
The overwhelming majority of AI citations (approximately 84%) come from earned media. Paid and advertorial content is virtually non-existent in the citation ecosystem, accounting for a mere 0.3% of links.
Weekly Digest, Issue #176, 6 June 2026
In the media ecosystem, major players must decide whether to extract resources or invest in diversity and complexity. Collective action is not about the strong helping the weak, but about preserving the foundation on which all depend.
Weekly Digest, Issue #175, 23 May 2026
AI agents increasingly mediate the relationship between publishers and audiences. However, emerging technical protocols, alongside global collective licensing efforts, offer a framework for publishers to reclaim authority and secure compensation.
Weekly Digest, Issue #174, 17 May 2026
The emerging market for AI content licensing is forming under conditions that mirror the structurally damaging relationships previously established between news publishers and search/social media platforms.
Weekly Digest, Issue #173, 10 May 2026
The publishers positioned for the AI moment are the ones who did the structural work before the moment arrived. Most newsrooms didn't.
Weekly Digest, Issue #172, 3 May 2026
The news industry isn't declining; it's being repriced, argues Francesco Marconi in his latest essay.
Weekly Digest, Issue #171, 25 April 2026
Beyond the Chatbot: Navigating the Reinvention of Information, a near future in which artificial intelligence serves as a primary intermediary.
Weekly Digest, Issue #170, 18 April 2026
The FT argues that while social media has fueled populism and polarisation by amplifying fringe voices, artificial intelligence may have the opposite effect.
Weekly Digest, Issue #169, 11 April 2026
Contrary to popular belief, a Mather Economics analysis suggests that while organic search is declining, this trend is part of a broader, multi-channel contraction affecting social and direct visits alike.
Weekly Digest, Issue #168, 4 April 2026
The transition toward an "agentic economy", one driven by autonomous AI agents, requires a fundamental shift in how technology is governed and structured.
Weekly Digest, Issue #167, 28 March 2026
The Future Today Strategy Group's Convergence Outlook 2026 proposes a framework of interconnected systemic change, arguing that isolated technological or social shifts no longer exist.
Weekly Digest Issue #166, 22 March 2026
Standards are not merely bureaucratic "alphabet soup"; they are the invisible blueprints that determine whether a frontier technology serves as a foundation for growth or a trap for future failure.
Weekly Digest, Issue #165, 7 March 2026
Expanding the Publisher’s Customer Surface in the AI-casting Era. The shared incentives that once supported quality journalism during the era of navigational and transactional search are now being replaced by AI-native exploratory queries. This change does more than just lower website traffic; it makes the old publisher
Weekly Digest, Issue #164, 28 Feb 2026
The Nordic High-Trust Model is Defying the Digital Gravity of Big Tech. The Nordic region is widely seen as a global role model for democratic health and media freedom. While many countries face increasing polarisation and digital disruption, these five nations have maintained notable social cohesion. However, they are
Weekly Digest Issue #163, 21 Feb 2026
The most resilient media companies in 2026 have realised they are no longer in the business of selling attention to the highest bidder. Instead, they operate as sophisticated content marketing engines for more dynamic, high-margin products.
Weekly Digest Issue #162, 14 Feb 2026
As AI usage has increased, people's attitudes towards it have evolved; they recognise the advantages of AI-saving time, reducing administrative tasks, assisting with learning, and unlocking creativity, while also expressing ongoing concerns about AI eroding what makes us human.
Weekly Digest Issue #161, 7 Feb 2026
This week's earnings reports from the US show that with the right focus, the Post can return to growth, and it's actually a pretty good time to be a premium news publisher.
Weekly Digest #160, 31 Jan 2026
The traditional economic bargain of the open web, where publishers provided content to search engines in exchange for traffic, is fundamentally broken. It needs a new economic model with collective licensing as a new economic layer for publishers and content creators.
Weekly Digest #159, 25 Jan 2026.
As tokenization moves into a critical financial market infrastructure, it can signal a similar shift for decentralised content provenance. Platforms and publishers would move from using it as an optional add-on to making it the default plumbing they quietly rely on.
Weekly Digest #158, 17 Jan 2026
Traditional decision cycles that rely on reports, news coverage, or analyst opinions often result in a delayed response to significant change. The future sends warnings. Those who notice first get ahead.