Digiday Publishing Summit

Registration opens and our team will be ready to greet you. Please stop by to check in and grab your badge.

Welcome. The editorial team will kick off the day’s sessions.

Growing a subscription business isn’t easy, but it may be necessary as publishers seek reader revenue amid fragmenting referral traffic. Phil Andraos will share insights from Reuters’ nearly two-year-old subscription business that have helped grow its consumer business.

As publishers look to maximize the value of their inventory, inaccurate identity signals can limit addressability, weaken buyer confidence and ultimately impact publisher yield. This session will take a closer look at the accuracy gap, how it impacts publisher performance and what publishers can do to build a stronger data foundation for success.

From ranking in AI-generated answers to striking licensing deals, this session with Mike Peralta, CRO at Future, will unpack the strategies publishers are using to stay visible, valuable and competitive in the AI era.

This session will focus on The Wall Street Journal’s multimedia playbook, and how its push to produce more reporter-led video, social, audio and newsletters has helped it reach new audiences, deepen engagement and drive subscriptions and revenue across its own platforms.

Politico is putting AI to work across its business. In this session, hear from Francesca Barber, evp of product, audience and AI, who is developing new AI initiatives across Politico’s newsroom, consumer products and a new product rolling out this fall for both free and paid audiences.

Take a break, grab a coffee and connect with fellow attendees before the next session begins.

Publishers only. Join us for a Town Hall session where we will create a challenge board and have an open and candid discussion about the industry. Together, we’ll create a challenge board and explore the real issues you’re facing — think of it as group therapy.

Sandboxes:

4:45pm – MediaGo: Beyond the Revenue Ceiling: The Role of Always-On Demand in Publisher Monetization

4:55pm – Assertive Yield B.V.: Operational Efficiency in the AI age

5:05pm – Infolinks – Family Feud

Publisher VIPs are invited to join us for a welcome drink and networking ahead of the 10-Minute Meetings.

The 10-Minute Meetings are designed to help connect participants with innovative technology platforms and build valuable business relationships.

Cocktails provided by Jamx

Wrap Day 1 with cocktails and network with your peers. Open to all.

Fuel up with breakfast, courtesy of Digiday, as we get the day started.

Welcome back! The editorial team is about to kick off day 2.

Every publisher has a story it wants buyers to hear. But AI sales agents may be telling a different one. Optable’s Andy Sharkey explores the gap between how publishers want to show up and how they actually appear when buyer agents evaluate their inventory, audiences, and data. He’ll share practical steps publishers can take to close that gap, then wrap with best practices to bring into the Agentic AI Ad Sales Challenge.

In this session, Adam Greenberg will discuss where the momentum is (and isn’t) in AI content licensing and partnerships between publishers and platforms, and how to weed out the real revenue opportunities.

Kristin Roberts will discuss the ways in which the publishing landscape has changed, what assumptions about the ecosystem no longer hold, and where USA TODAY Co is seeing opportunities to invest in, ranging from AI product development, and subscription offerings to acquire and retain audiences in a challenging referral traffic environment.

AI is taking your traffic — search referrals fell 36% in 2025, while AI answer engines send back a fraction of a percent in return. Michael Silberman, EVP Media Strategy at Piano covers what’s working: locking down content at the edge before it’s scraped for free and using AI inside the business to cut churn and lift conversion. Drawing on a new survey of 80 media executives, a practical look at defending your content and putting AI to work on your terms.

As AI changes how audiences discover, consume and interact with information, publishers are rethinking how they build direct relationships with consumers and deliver differentiated value. Sally Shin will discuss how evolving audience expectations are informing CNBC’s approach to growth, how partnerships and emerging technologies can create more useful experiences, and why trusted journalism and premium content become even more important in an AI-driven world.

Like many publishers, The Verge has lost a chunk of its Google search traffic, but it’s not panicking. In this session, hear how Esther Cohen, director of audience and subscriptions at The Verge, is preparing for “Google Zero” — by overhauling the audience team, and deploying a strategy that hinges on enhancing subscription value and audience engagement to squeeze more out of every site visitor. 

Take a break, grab a coffee and connect with fellow attendees before the next session begins.

Publishers only. Join us for a Town Hall session where we will create a challenge board and have an open and candid discussion about the industry.

Sandboxes:

12:10pm – Iterable

12:20pm – Fastly: Your Agentic Future: A Clear Path Forward

Recharge with lunch and network with peers before the afternoon break.

Pull up a chair for an informal conversation with Digiday’s editors. Ask your biggest questions about AI, subscriptions, advertising and what’s next for media, and get an insider’s perspective on the trends, challenges and stories shaping the industry.

The 10-Minute Meetings are designed to help connect participants with innovative technology platforms and build valuable business relationships.

Join us for cocktails to wrap Day 2. Open to all.

Fuel up with breakfast, courtesy of Digiday, as we get the day started.

Welcome back! The editorial team is about to kick off the final day of sessions.

Axios is capitalizing on its high visibility in AI answer engines, which Jacquelyn Cameron attributes to Axios’ “Smart Brevity” format. Cameron will discuss exploring new business opportunities to leverage this visibility, such as brand partnerships.

As referral traffic declines and publishers have less control over how audiences discover their content, Ziff Davis is doubling down on platforms beyond the domain. Steve Horowitz will share how the company is investing in video, social and newsletters to build direct audience relationships and create new paths to growth and monetization.

Creators have rewritten the video playbook, leading publishers to update not just their production practices but also their commercial processes. Semafor head of video Adam Banicki will detail a role built at the intersection of the newsroom and the commercial team, from reporting to the editor-in-chief with a dotted line to the revenue side to how that plays out week to week.

Puck is building a business where the creators are the infrastructure of its publishing model. CRO Liz Gough will explain Puck’s “vanity metric” for the AI era and how the company is using AI to handle the back-office weight so the journalists can focus on insider reporting.

Digiday moderators will recap the event’s key takeaways.