The news: As more publishers ink deals with tech companies for AI licensing and lay off staff, the old revenue model built on advertising is quietly receding.

• Last week's agreement between The New York Times and Amazon adds to a growing list of publishers, including News Corp and The Atlantic, now monetizing archives and reporting through AI partnerships rather than digital ad impressions.
• Meanwhile, Business Insider is citing traffic volatility and AI-powered productivity as reasons for deep staff cuts, per Adweek.
• According to data from publishers worldwide, only 24% believe advertising-based AI use cases are “very important” to their future, while licensing and subscriptions are emerging as more durable pillars.

Why it matters: For decades, publishers scaled up around ad revenue, chasing traffic and pageviews to monetize reader attention. That model now looks increasingly fragile as audiences splinter, platforms tighten distribution, and AI disrupts discovery.

• In response, publishers are reducing their exposure to unpredictable traffic sources and emphasizing revenue streams they can control—namely, subscriptions and licensing deals.
• If this trend continues, the economics of journalism could start to resemble those of other creative industries, where a smaller number of players license content to powerful distribution platforms—raising new questions about ownership, bargaining power, and editorial independence.

Our take: This is a foundational change in how journalism gets paid for.

• Licensing offers short-term gains, but long-term, it risks making publishers the junior partners in a tech-led information ecosystem. The upside is stability and scale; the downside is dependence on platforms whose priorities can shift overnight.
• As AI systems become better at generating and distributing content, publishers need to lock in favorable terms now—while their data still holds leverage. The business model of the future won’t hinge on ad clicks, but on who controls the rights to credible, high-quality information.