In a rapidly shifting global landscape, news media companies must rethink everything — and recognise that AI, diversified income, and brand strength will define the next decade of journalism.

That was the opening message delivered by INMA Executive Director and CEO Earl Wilkinson at the Africa Media Revenue Summit earlier this week as he shared how the global media industry is undergoing a profound transformation — and offered Africa’s publishers best practices on how to navigate it.

A world in transformation

Although the current, rapid transformation is global, Wilkinson noted media markets are evolving at dramatically different speeds. 

Based on his recent travels to locales such as India, Nepal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, New York, Miami, and beyond, he observed: “What is happening in Germany is not happening in the United States. What’s happening in the United States is not happening in Kenya.” But understanding the changes occurring in each of these regions gives INMA the global perspective its members need, he added.

INMA, Wilkinson reminded the audience, is not a journalism organisation but one focused on the business of journalism: growing audiences, revenue, and brand strength.

“I believe we are making a massive contribution to the redefinition and the spotlighting of journalism,” he said. “Not only because I believe that journalism matters in this fractured environment and that it needs to be foundational in the era of AI, but that we need to make it financially sustainable.”

It is, of course, impossible to discuss the changing news media environment without addressing the role of AI: “We know that AI has, in fact, become the strategic operating fabric of news media.”

Technology’s relentless disruption

Wilkinson noted that the one constant over the past 30 years of digital transformation has been disruptionm Wilkinson said. Publishers may not like it, but it is inevitable: “You didn’t like mobile, you didn’t like iPad, you didn’t like digital. Along comes AI and who knows what’s coming next,” he said.

Today’s news industry leaders have “witnessed this mid-career need to learn the new economics of content.” And that means more than just shifting a story from print to digital; it means rethinking how users interact with content and brands.

“Users interact at the article level and buy at the brand level,” he explained. “What that ultimately means is that our differentiators are really only our journalism and our brand.”

He also warned that the tightening of press freedoms, even in countries like the United States, are reshaping the context in which media companies operate: “The context of media is just changing and it’s different region by region.”

That change is impacting business models and changes what sustainability looks like. Whilst financial sustainability is essential — “you have to take care of yourself first” —publishers must still stretch their brands beyond the core paying audience. That means embracing advertising, forming partnerships with Big Tech, and being open to new commercial ventures.

Although high-end brands such as The New York Times could theoretically survive on subscriptions alone, those brands make up a small percentage of publications. For most publishers, subscriptions “just aren’t going to be enough and you need more of a diversified model — not only advertising but reach portals, digital services, e-commerce platforms, and more.”

Digital advertising is difficult to navigate, and even brands like The New York Times are developing other verticals within the brand like Games, Cooking, Wirecutter, and The Athletic to ensure their success moving forward.

AI as the great disruptor 

Of course, the biggest disruptor for news publishers over the past two years has been AI, and Wilkinson pointed out that INMA was the first in the industry to recognise that AI’s first impact would be on “efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity.”

That prediction, of course, has proven correct.

AI is already reducing unit costs in editing, tagging, customer service, and marketing. It is reshaping workflows, powering personalisation, and enabling publishers to behave more like consumer product companies — constantly fine-tuning pricing, offers, and engagement flows.

“AI today … is turning publishers from content businesses into customer platforms with profitability driven more by lifetime value, not pageviews,” he said. “This is roughly the equivalent of changing our religion.”

That leaves leaders with some big questions to answer, Wilkinson said.

“Are we treating AI as core infrastructure and not a side project? You’re going to have to answer that,” he said.

Companies must focus on organising around audiences, not departments, and newsrooms will have to look at investing in talent beyond journalists. Instead, they should be looking at hybrid talent who can also embrace data and product thinking.

These shifts in thinking aren’t easy, Wilkinson acknowledged, but they are essential: “This is the most complicated intersection we’ve ever tried to manage, study, and educate.”

5 global revenue trends

Wilkinson distilled INMA’s research into five major global revenue trends that publishers need to be aware of:

1. Subscription bundles beat single products. The industry is shifting from single-product subscriptions to bundled offerings. Consumers hesitate to pay for news alone, but “they will pay for daily utility and entertainment.”
2. Monetisation of audience relationships. Growth is no longer driven by acquisition but by converting “transactional subscribers” into long-term relationships.
3. Diversified revenue is essential. Roughly a quarter of publisher revenue now comes from events, e-commerce, memberships, and B2B services. In the United States, philanthropy is emerging as a third revenue pillar alongside advertising and reader revenue.
4. First-party data and premium environments. Digital advertising success depends on quality audiences, strong first-party data, and trusted brands.
5. AI-optimised monetisation. AI enables deeper personalisation, dynamic pricing, and multi-product monetisation. “AI allows publishers to behave more like consumer product companies, constantly fine-tuning their offers, their pricing, and their engagement flows,” he explained. “The last decade was about digitising journalism. The next decade will be about productising audience relationships. The winning publishers today behave more like consumer product companies with journalism at the core.”

The rebirth of brand

In a world flooded with AI-generated content and creator-driven media, brand is the ultimate differentiator, Wilkinson told attendees.

“There is no print brand, there is no digital brand. They’re just brands,” he said, urging publishers to rediscover emotional resonance, personality, and storytelling in their marketing.

Wilkinson acknowledged that newsrooms are rarely comfortable talking about brand, but that needs to change to provide companies with “a differentiator in this avalanche of AI.” He urged companies to lean into their personalities rather than relying too heavily on their history and longevity.

“We have to come at this with more emotion, more optimism, more hope,” he said. “Tell your journalism story but also bring the readers into your story. What does it mean for them?”

Wilkinson closed with a reminder that “what we do matters.” News media companies offer crucial services and observations. They inform the public, preserve democracy, and record history in real time. But he also issued a strategic warning: Publishers must build strategies around what will not change.

“Your brand won’t change. The basis of your brand won’t change. And the trajectory of the tech that carries your brand won’t change,” he said.

The next decade, he concluded, “is not about digitising journalism, it’s about productising audience relationships around trusted brands. That is the lede to the story.”

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