Happy New Year! 

To ease back in, I thought we’d start off with some inspiration. I asked the INMA Product & Tech Advisory Council what they will be focusing on. You’ll see some core themes shine through in their comments below (edited for length and formatting).

What really struck me was the thinking around the likely disintermediation of content and users that AI brings and, because of this, the strong focus on building habit around — sometimes personalised — audience centric journeys.  

If these are themes you are thinking about too, keep an eye out for a report coming soon on how news organisations can work with AI companies. I also highly recommend checking out next month’s master class on building audience over traffic. 

Thanks for joining me here and for being part of this journey on what may be a roller coaster for news organisations in 2025. As always, please get in touch if you have questions, thoughts, comments, or topics you are keen to bring to the community. I’m at jodie.hopperton@INMA.org. 

Best, Jodie

INMA Advisory Council priorities for 2025

I discussed 2025 priorities with the INMA Product & Tech Advisory Council. Here’s what they said.

From Julian Delany, chief technology officer/data and digital at News Corp Australia:

Consumer “engagement” on our products across the network is a focus for us in 2025. A multi-channel personalised journey across our sites and apps is key amongst many levers to drive this metric.

Whilst this will be powered by our data and associated technology, importantly, the evolution of an innovative, logical, and seamless user experience to bring personalisation to life is where consumers will recognise value and engagement outcomes will be demonstrated to the business.

From Riske Betten, director of B2C at Mediahuis Netherlands:

Our goals for 2025 are to migrate to a new CMS and a mobile first site and app, to make our dynamic (pay)wall more intelligent, and to optimise our digital subscription offering to better align with the needs of our customers.

A broad question we are looking to solve: How do we build a habit? How do we become this self-evident and indispensable piece in people’s lives? The biggest frustration of loyal subscribers when they can’t consume their favourite news brand seems to boil down to a habit being disturbed.

From Kara Chiles, senior vice president/consumer products at Gannett in the United States:

Gannett’s product strategy is guided by a focus on purposeful, audience-centric content experiences, moving away from uniform “matching luggage” designs. This involves optimising content delivery based on the type, device, and engagement moment rather than relying solely on responsive design. 

As Apple News shapes user expectations, Gannett aims to strategically differentiate its platform, ensuring a seamless transition for users while intentionally offering unique experiences where appropriate.

Personalisation and optimisation through automation remain central themes. The strategy prioritises tailoring content in ways that feel genuinely individual and addressing curation’s evolving role, moving from traditional editorial layouts to following trusted creators and influencers.

With desktop now seen as the “print” of digital, the focus shifts to mobile-first strategies, questioning when desktop experiences merit investment versus prioritising innovative mobile solutions.

From Christoph Zimmer, chief product officer, at Der Spiegel in Germany:

We have many priorities for 2025 — as likely all of us do: driving further subscription growth through a new starter subscription, launching new games, introducing a new culinary and recipe offering, or pushing/supporting the shift to vertical video.

But for me, Artificial Intelligence is at the very center of it all.

This isn’t just about the use of AI in our production processes (for example, we’re working on a new interface for our CMS editor), improving internal access to knowledge (like a chatbot for our archive system), or presenting content (through partnerships such as with Perplexity).

It’s also — perhaps even more — about how our content can be made usable for Artificial Intelligence.

To me, OpenAI and Apple AI already demonstrate how AI might transform the interaction with content even stronger than the production of content. How can we make sure that our subscribers can access our content through ChatGPT, Siri on their iPhones, or other AI agents? And how do we ensure that we remain visible as a brand in these interactions that might even lack real user interfaces and run on voice only?

From Karl Oskar Teien, director of product and UX at Schibsted in Norway/Sweden: 

Five key themes will be in focus for 2025:

1. Distributing the right content to the right user through responsible use of personalisation. A central element of our approach is about tuning content feeds to combine newsroom judgement with algorithmic signals about users’ individual interests. Quantifying editorial judgement is a capability we believe will be essential to combining the strengths of both elements in news distribution.

2. Serving the right subscription offer to the right user by offering flexible products adapted to users’ habits and willingness to pay. Access level and price tiers will expand to suit a larger range of user segments.
   
   

   

3. Versioning our stories to suit users’ different needs on two parallel tracks: No. 1, expanding our capacity for text-based story versioning (short/long, advanced/simplified, etc). No. 2, making audio and video more natural modes of news consumption for our users.

4. Growing our audio offering across Scandinavia through Podme’s rapid subscriber growth, combined with a bigger presence of audio within each brand’s product experience. 

5. Significantly expanding our AI capabilities for both newsroom production and end-user consumption, helping us learn and adapt fast, while adopting the right human-in-the-loop guardrails to protect users' trust in our journalistic process. A potential revolution in the information ecosystem as a whole means we continue exploring disruptive scenarios and our role in a range of potential futures.

From Pundi Sriram, chief product officer at The Hindu in India:

For The Hindu Group, 2025 will focus on automation, personalisation, and strategic adoption of generative AI to achieve key priorities.

Efforts include fostering a consistent news habit through automated and personalised engagement triggers, introducing adaptive content formats like chat, summaries, audio explainers, and video with minimal editorial input, and broadening audience verticals into areas like food, health, education, and music through personalised feeds and new products.

The year will also emphasise scaling video and audio with enhanced discovery and streamlined workflows, leveraging AI to support creators, and launching B2B2C offerings aimed at engaging Gen Z students in educational institutions with news in familiar formats. While the impact of generative AI on user behaviour remains uncertain, these initiatives aim to position The Hindu Group to adapt effectively to the changes ahead.

From Katharine Bailey, global head of product and design at Condé  Nast in the United States:

In 2025, the focus will be on making Web sites and apps the best places to experience our brands, driving loyalty, and building habits. 

This includes encouraging repeat visits by making content discovery seamless, offering immersive storytelling, fostering community interaction, and enhancing utility through tools like puzzles, games, apps, and newsletters. Apps will cater to specific customer needs for higher engagement, while Web platforms will remain the primary entry point for new audiences.

Key priorities include improving product relevance through better customer insights, creating engaging shopping experiences with personalised features, and fostering a data-driven culture for testing and optimisation.

Efforts will also center on decluttering user experiences to deliver distinct, scalable brands, expanding into new markets, and licensing content with improved governance. A strong push for subscription growth will involve smarter metering, personalised pricing, and bundling strategies to deepen customer relationships.

From John Kundert, chief product and technology officer, Financial Times in the United Kingdom: 

In 2025, addressing disintermediation risk will be a major focus as AI evolves into highly practical use cases. To counteract this, investments will prioritise hard-to-replicate product experiences, including advanced storytelling and interactive, multi-modal customer experiences.

Computational journalism and personalisation, such as the next iteration of MyFT, will receive increased investment, all aligned with the newsroom’s core mission. Additionally, efforts will center on fostering a sense of community among customers.

Foundational capabilities for the year include bolstering first-party data collection and defining data infrastructure, from ethics to real-time architecture, recognising that strong data underpins effective AI.

Mobile technology will also be a priority as the organisation moves toward a mobile-first approach. With an eye on 2026, exploratory work will focus on engaging younger audiences and achieving a unified customer view across FT products. Outcomes for 2025 will emphasise converting existing audiences into subscribers and driving engagement over upper-funnel reach.

Date for the diary: INMA News Tech Ecosystems Master Class February 13, 18, 20

Based on all the above, we know AI is changing the top of funnel for news organisations. 

In this master class about what news publishers need to know about how to build audience — not just direct — traffic, we delve into what we can do about it including product and platform discovery, alternatives to SEO, how to double down on engagement, and how to build reader habits through community engagement.

More information and sign up is here. 

And if you have a case study you think would fit this or an upcoming newsletter, please reach out to me at jodie.hopperton@inma.org.

About this newsletter 

Today’s newsletter is written by Jodie Hopperton, based in Los Angeles and lead for the INMA Product and Tech Initiative. Jodie will share research, case studies, and thought leadership on the topic of global news media product.

This newsletter is a public face of the Product and Tech Initiative by INMA, outlined here. E-mail Jodie at jodie.hopperton@inma.org with thoughts, suggestions, and questions. Sign up to our Slack channel.

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