About the paper
The report examines the strategic pressures, technology shifts, and business-model changes likely to shape journalism in 2026, with a strong focus on generative AI, platform dependency, creators, video, and misinformation.
It is a mixed-methods industry trends report drawing primarily on a closed survey of 280 senior news leaders from 51 countries and territories, supplemented by background interviews, industry examples, and third-party data such as Chartbeat analytics; the survey is global in scope but not a representative sample of the wider industry.
Length: 47 pages
More information / download:
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/journalism-media-and-technology-trends-and-predictions-2026
Core Insights
1. Why does the report argue that journalism faces a particularly acute strategic squeeze in 2026?
The report’s central argument is that journalism is being squeezed simultaneously by technological disruption and cultural-platform disruption. On one side, generative AI is changing how people access information, especially through search engines turning into answer engines and AI tools surfacing information directly in chat interfaces rather than sending traffic to publishers. On the other side, creators and influencers are pulling attention towards more personality-led, platform-native content that often feels more direct, relevant, or entertaining than traditional institutional journalism.
The report frames this as an existential challenge because it affects both economics and legitimacy. Economically, publishers fear a major drop in referral traffic from search and social platforms. Culturally and politically, journalism is also under pressure from declining trust, direct-to-audience communication by politicians and celebrities, and continued attacks on news media as biased or fake. The report suggests that journalism is no longer just competing with rival publishers, but with AI intermediaries, platform algorithms, and creator ecosystems that change how audiences discover and value information.
This squeeze is reflected in industry sentiment. Only 38% of surveyed leaders say they are confident about journalism’s prospects in the year ahead, which the report says is 22 percentage points lower than in 2022. At the same time, 53% remain confident about their own organisation’s prospects. That contrast matters: the report suggests many executives believe their own brand may survive or adapt, even while the broader health of journalism as a public institution deteriorates.
2. What evidence does the report provide that AI and platform shifts are already reshaping access to news and publisher traffic?
One of the report’s most concrete findings is that publishers expect search traffic to decline by 43% on average over the next three years. That expectation is linked to Google AI Overviews, AI mode, and the wider shift from search engines that send users outward to answer engines that satisfy users inside the interface. The report also notes that around a fifth of respondents expect a loss of more than 75% of their company’s search traffic.
The report backs this up with Chartbeat data. Across a network of more than 2,500 sites, Google Search referrals were down 33% globally year-on-year between November 2024 and November 2025, and down 38% in the United States. Google Discover traffic was also down. By contrast, Facebook and X showed modest year-on-year increases in that specific comparison period, but the longer trend remains negative: over roughly the last two and a half years, Facebook referrals fell by 43% and X referrals by 46%. The point is not that one channel is collapsing overnight, but that publishers are losing stability across several external traffic sources at once.
The report also shows that AI referral growth is real but still tiny in commercial terms. ChatGPT referrals to publishers are rising quickly, yet they remain a tiny fraction of overall traffic. The report says Google delivers 500 times as many referrals as ChatGPT from search alone, and 1,300 times as many if Google Discover is included. So the immediate issue is not that AI platforms already replace traditional traffic at scale, but that they may erode old discovery systems much faster than they create meaningful new value for publishers.
This is why the report highlights publisher ambivalence towards AI platforms. Publishers are weighing lawsuits, licensing deals, visibility strategies, and new optimisation practices such as AEO and GEO. The implication is that access to audiences is becoming less about classic SEO and more about negotiating with, supplying, or optimising for AI-mediated distribution systems.
3. How does the report think publishers will respond editorially and strategically to these pressures?
The clearest editorial response in the report is a shift towards distinctiveness. Survey respondents say journalism should focus more on original reporting, contextual analysis, community-building, human stories, fact-checking, and opinion or commentary. These are all framed as forms of journalism that are harder for AI systems to commoditise or summarise into generic output. Conversely, publishers expect to pull back from service journalism, evergreen content, and general news, because those formats are more easily absorbed by chatbots and aggregators.
The report also points to a format shift. Publishers increasingly see video and audio as strategic priorities in response to AI. Seventy-nine per cent say it is important to invest more in video, and 71% say the same for audio. Text is still important, but the report suggests its economic and competitive position is weakening because AI can cheaply generate, remix, and summarise text-based content. Video and audio are seen as more defensible, more engaging, and more suited to platform discovery.
Distribution strategy is changing too. For 2026, publishers plan to put more effort into YouTube, AI platforms, TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn, while reducing effort on X, Facebook, and old-style Google Search optimisation. This reflects a move away from legacy social and search habits towards video-heavy environments and AI interfaces. It also reflects the report’s broader argument that publishers need to meet audiences where attention is moving, even if that means adjusting tone, format, and production logic.
The report adds an important nuance: not all publishers will pursue the same path. Some will double down on distinctiveness and direct audience relationships, while others will lean further into automation and scale. The report describes a possible “barbell effect”, with highly distinctive human journalism at one end and highly automated low-cost publishing at the other, leaving mid-market undifferentiated outlets especially vulnerable.
4. What does the report say about the growing influence of creators, video culture, and personality-led journalism?
The report treats the creator wave as one of the defining shifts in the media environment. It argues that platform changes have turbo-charged creator economics by favouring viral, personality-led, video-first content over traditional link-sharing and institutional distribution. Publishers are worried primarily about creators taking time and attention away from publisher content: 70% are somewhat or very concerned about that. A smaller, but still significant, 39% are concerned about losing talent to the creator ecosystem.
Importantly, the report does not present creators purely as a threat. It suggests they have become a model for authenticity, voice, and audience connection, even if much creator content is more opinion-led and partisan than traditional journalism. That duality matters: creators are competitors, but also proof that audiences respond to content that feels human, recognisable, and direct. Publishers, the report suggests, are learning from this without fully embracing its norms.
That is why 76% of surveyed publishers say they will try to get journalists to behave a bit more like creators in 2026. Half plan to partner with creators for distribution, 31% say they may hire creators, and 28% are considering creator studios or joint ventures. Examples in the report include Wired building writers into platform personalities, CNN Creators, SPIL in the Netherlands, and various creator partnerships or branded ventures at the Independent, Vox Media, and the Washington Post.
But the report also flags risks. Making journalists more personality-led may create conflicts around editorial standards, reputation, and independence. It may also help staff build their own followings and then leave. More fundamentally, moving too far towards creator logic may undermine some of the things audiences still value in institutional journalism, such as fairness, verification, and a consistent editorial voice. So the report sees creator influence as both necessary stimulus and strategic tension.
5. What broader conclusions does the report draw about the future of journalism, newsroom AI, and sustainable business models?
The report’s conclusion is neither apocalyptic nor reassuring. It argues that journalism is still in transition: old models are fading, new ones are emerging, and the eventual settlement is unclear. It suggests the industry will probably get smaller overall, with some audience attention permanently shifting elsewhere, but it rejects the idea that journalism becomes irrelevant. Reliable reporting, human stories, analysis, and trust still matter, especially in a media environment polluted by AI slop, misinformation, and manipulative content.
On newsroom AI, the report is pragmatic rather than evangelical. AI use is spreading across back-end automation, coding, product development, commercial applications, newsgathering, and content creation with human oversight. Yet the impact so far is mostly described as promising or limited rather than transformational. Only 13% describe newsroom AI initiatives as transformational, while 44% say promising and 42% say limited. Likewise, AI has not yet translated into major labour savings for most organisations: 67% report no job cuts, 16% say they cut only a small number, and 9% say they have actually added jobs.
On business models, subscriptions and membership remain the main priority, followed by display and native advertising, with events also important. The most notable emerging revenue area is platform payment for content, including AI-related licensing or revenue sharing, though the report makes clear that most publishers expect this to be, at best, a minor contribution rather than a transformative income stream. It also identifies structural barriers to innovation, especially lack of resources, skill shortages, siloed organisations, and weak strategic alignment.
The final implication is that survival will depend less on chasing every trend and more on strategic clarity. The publishers most likely to thrive, according to the report, are those with a clear sense of their audience, their role, and the value they can create. That means being human where it matters, adaptable where necessary, and organised enough internally to experiment with new formats, products, and business models without losing editorial purpose.