Two years ago, the outlet launched its first “extendable” article: a long-form feature accompanied by a database of reporting, from interview recordings to news articles to YouTube videos. Readers could query a chatbot, which would fetch additional details from the database.
Recently, Every published a 8,000-word article about Codex that subscribers can consume in even more forms. Drawing from the database, subscribers’ agents can tailor a new piece—be it an article, podcast, or video—to suit their interests. One reader might want a bulleted summary, while another could request a short film of interview bits.
“As a writer, you have to make choices about what goes into the story you’re telling,” Shipper says. “And there’s always a question about, are those the right choices? Or, are those the right choices for a particular reader?” With AI, journalists no longer choose.
“People are gonna do crazy, crazy stuff with this,” Shipper adds.
As outlets eye AI agents as a new audience, another question looms: Can publishers actually make money off of this?
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, a professor of communication at the University of Copenhagen, says that while the market of publishing for agents is “emerging,” it remains immature and “extremely uneven.” Major questions remain, he says, about price points and how AI agents will interact with content in the future.
Cameron and Allison Murphy, Axios’ chief operating officer, are optimistic about AI as an audience proxy. According to the executives, Axios’s short-form, highly structured style has already made the publisher a favorite for AI to pull from, when responding to prompts. “Time is money for crawlers,” Murphy says. “They don’t want to have to go three quarters down the page to find the main point. So, that’s something that’s already benefiting us.”
But does AI crawling its content actually benefit Axios’ bottom line? Even if readers don’t actually visit the Axios homepage, the brand visibility in and of itself can be positive, Nielsen says. It’s not unlike publishers making content for social platforms like TikTok and Instagram that rarely bring viewers back to their websites.
