AI is tanking traffic to news sites — but it might just save their ad revenue

AI is creating a paradox for news publishers: While AI chatbots are tanking traffic to websites, new AI-powered brand safety tools are helping advertisers rediscover the value of news ad inventory.

Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal signaled a looming ‘AI Armageddon’ for online news publishers, mounting fears that AI is causing digital traffic to plummet. But even as chatbots change the way people search online, advances in AI-powered brand safety tools are helping advertisers see news as a strategic media play, according to Jonah Goodhart, co-founder and CEO at Mobian, an ad tech startup that uses generative AI to evaluate a publisher’s content.

“Brands and agencies are now beginning to recognize that they have a fiduciary responsibility to drive business results [...] Removing an entire category like news because of a legacy approach, doesn't serve their bottom line,” Goodhart told The Current.

Meanwhile, news publishers are realizing they can “more effectively evaluate and ultimately monetize their inventory.” Goodhart argues that these AI tools, if deployed correctly, can benefit news sites and advertisers alike, at a time when the demonetization efforts of legacy brand safety companies are driving ad rates down for news publishers.

“News inventory may present a near-term opportunity for smart brands to leverage this performant inventory at a more efficient price than many other options.”

In short, declining traffic doesn’t automatically translate to declining revenue — especially if publishers and advertisers adapt strategically to the new AI-driven landscape.

Drawing advertisers back to news

Investment in digital news channels grew by 2% YoY in Q3 2025, according to Reach data. This marks a “steady return of confidence in digital news as an advertising channel,” says Fiona Salmon, Managing Director at Mantis, a brand safety startup part of Reach.

Similarly, earlier this year, Stagwell made a commitment to increasing ad spend in news media by 22% YoY, after seeing 2024 campaigns deliver three times ROAS from advertising in news.

This turn of sentiment stands in contrast to what was happening just three years ago, when PwC found overall news media revenues down 2.76% YoY.

AI-powered brand safety tools have played a strong role in this recovery, explains Salmon.

“[The tools] are allowing advertisers to see the data for themselves; for instance, that more than half of news content carries a positive sentiment. Insights like that are helping to rebuild trust in quality journalism and give marketers the confidence to re-enter the news space.”

Context is everything

Historically, advertisers have used blocklists — a more traditional form of brand safety tool which relies on keyword-based targeting. “But context is everything,” said Meagan Myers, VP of programmatic strategy and partnerships at Fox Corporation.

“This is where AI is changing the game for our business — helping us assess meaning, tone, and subject matter more intelligently, and ensuring ads appear in appropriate, relevant environments,” she added.

Recently, Fox announced a partnership with Mobian. Fox’s monetization has “directly improved” as a result of leveraging Mobian solutions, according to Myers.

“We’ve been able to unlock underutilized inventory, ensure premium CPMs, and guarantee advertiser placement within relevant, brand-safe environments,” she said.

Mobian exemplifies the results brands are seeing as they return to journalism. At an Advertising Week New York session, Prudential Financial said they are seeing “upwards of 50% more efficiency” by leveraging their AI tools, according to Goodhart.

These positive results are due to the tech providing both greater transparency and improved context analysis, as well as a “mentality shift” within the industry, said Goodhart.

The value of news audiences

Stagwell’s Advertising Impact Study shows that the average purchase intent among ‘news junkies’ is 66% — 16 percentage points higher than the general population.

Consumers even view brands “more favorably” when they advertise on news platforms, according to Mark Penn, Chairman and CEO of Stagwell.

“The notion of what’s considered ‘brand safe’ has gotten so out of hand that it is preventing brands from reaching valuable information consumers — who, by the way, are more likely to purchase something and translate into a sale anyway,” he told The Current.

Is AI really tanking news traffic?

In reality, it’s the click-bait news content which is suffering the most, said Vanessa Otero, founder and CEO of Ad Fontes Media – particularly “news sources that just rewrite others’ stories.”

On her blog, Otero discussed how high-quality news publications are generally less prone to AI replacement, as they serve a different primary purpose than SEO.

High-quality news publishers can insulate their site traffic drops by mastering content they are “uniquely positioned to create — high quality, public service journalism,” she wrote.

“People need true information — that’s why news will always exist, even if the technology and markets around it change,” Otero added.