If you are headed to #NPASummit, don't miss this session with Austin Smith and Sylvia Borowski! NPA is sold out, but see the link to their waitlist below.
Publishers have been working to move away from ad-dependent models and build stronger foundations through subscriptions, first-party data, and direct reader relationships. But just as many news organizations are making that shift, AI is posing new challenges: bots scraping content without compensation, LLMs training on journalism without licensing agreements, and search summaries reducing the opportunities to bring audiences to publishers’ own platforms. Austin Smith (President at Alley) and Sylvia Borowski (Senior Director of Product at Chicago Public Media) will lead a masterclass at the #NPASummit 2026 on the concrete questions news organizations are facing around direct audience relationships, content ownership, and AI. How can publishers continue to grow memberships, subscriptions, and donations? How might they replace top-of-funnel opportunities as audiences increasingly engage with journalism without visiting their own platforms? And how should they approach restrictions, licensing, and AEO when working with LLMs? You’ll leave with a framework for evaluating these decisions and language you can bring back to your leadership. The NPA Summit is currently sold out, but we have a waitlist available! If you would like to be added, please fill out this form: https://lnkd.in/dp9twi4X