AI: things you need to consider in 2026

By the end of 2026, the media industry will have transitioned from experimental use of AI to scaled commercialisation of AI. For senior management at UK publishers, the focus must shift to deeply embedding AI tools in internal workflows to drive efficiency and develop new products, revenue streams and better margins. Human oversight will remain the non-negotiable standard for supporting editorial integrity and audience trust.

1. The commercialisation of proprietary data: The business model is shifting from content reach to data-to-business (D2B) products. Many media companies are focussing on ‘lead insights’, using AI to process data at scale and provide higher value to B2B customers. Similarly, some are building private GPTs to allow staff to talk to proprietary content and data to provide new and deeper opportunities for content and intelligence products, such as Mumsnet’s ‘MumsGPT’ which synthesises millions of human conversations, effectively allowing brands to replace traditional focus groups with real-time AI insights.
2. Human authenticity as premium content: As synthetic AI content becomes ubiquitous, human created content will become a premium “luxury” product. Publishers must lean into personality, voice, and attitude, qualities AI cannot convincingly replicate in an AI-saturated content marketplace. Services like PA’s Verified Expert Hub will be increasingly used to protect against fake experts or AI-generated misinformation.
3. Navigating the reality of zero-click search: The traditional search and social discovery model is being smashed. While Google once provided a visitor for every two pages crawled, AI tools now require 1,000s of pages for a single visitor. Google Gemini, which rides on the coat tails of search as it crawls for indexing, provides summaries that keep users from clicking through, so 2026 will be a year when media owners need to face this reality and make tough decisions about allowing access or not.
4. IP protection and copyright protection: To combat the hoovering of copyrighted material, publishers are adopting a ‘Big Red Button’ policy. The FT now ensures that all licensing deals must include the right to instantly halt archive access if transparency or usage terms are violated. Standardised licensing marketplaces, potentially led by platforms like Microsoft, are expected to appear to formalise payments for training data, providing new and alternative revenues for publishers.
5. The rise of agentic AI and bot verification: By 2027, over 50% of web traffic will consist of non-human “agentic” bots. This creates challenges around blocking these bots as serving costs are driven up by them, but also a new value proposition: human-verified audiences. Consequently, publishers must move toward standard reporting that explicitly breaks out human vs bot traffic to satisfy advertisers.
6. Regulatory guardrails and conduct requirements: Many publishers are looking to bodies like the CMA to enforce conduct requirements that give them meaningful choice and control over how their content is used in AI “modes”. Collective action, described by some as a ‘NATO for news’ will be essential for sharing intelligence on bot behaviour and setting unified terms for attribution and compensation.
7. Media fluidity and personalisation: Consumers will expect fluid experiences, jumping seamlessly between audio, text, and video. By 2027, AI will be the invisible bedrock enabling hyper-personalisation, helping publishers reconnect directly with ‘members’ rather than anonymous ‘users’.

This article was first published in the Publishing Partners Guide 2026, which was distributed with the January / February 2026 issue of InPublishing magazine. You can register to receive InPublishing magazine here.