In the view of Jim VandeHei, CEO of Axios, AI will “eviscerate the weak, the ordinary, the unprepared in media.”
The rapid rise of genetic artificial intelligence — and its implications for how people will discover and consume news — has many media executives upset. Like them, Mr. VandeHei has spent the past year or so pondering how to respond.
Now he’s becoming one of the first news executives to adapt their company’s strategy because of artificial intelligence
Mr VandeHei says the only way for media companies to survive is to focus on providing journalistic expertise, credible content and a personal human connection. For Axios, that translates into more live events, a membership program focused on its star reporters, and an expansion of its premium subscription newsletters.
“We are in the midst of a very fundamental shift in the way people relate to news and information,” he said, “as profound, if not more profound, than the shift from print to digital.”
“Fast forward five to 10 years from now and we’re living in this virtual world dominated by artificial intelligence – who are the two players in the media space that deliver smart, sensible content that thrive?” he added. “It better be us.”
Axios is investing in hosting more events, both around the world and in the United States. Mr VandeHei said the events division of his business grew by 60 per cent year-on-year in 2023.
The company has also introduced a $1,000-a-year subscription program around some of its journalists that will offer exclusive reporting, events and networking. The first, announced last month, focuses on Eleanor Hawkins, who writes a weekly newsletter for communications professionals. Her newsletter will remain free, but paying subscribers will have access to additional news and data, as well as quarterly calls with Ms. Hawkins.
Membership programs will then be built around Sara Fischer, a media journalist, and business editor Dan Primack, who writes the daily Pro Rata newsletter, according to a person familiar with the company’s plans.
“I try to align the company with people who have a lot of talent: they thrive, we thrive,” Mr. VandeHei said.
Axios will expand Axios Pro, its collection of eight premium subscription newsletters focused on specific niches in the world of deals and politics. Subscriptions start at $599 a year each, and Axios is looking to add one for defense policy. The firm just hired an executive, Danica Stanciu, to oversee expansion into more policy areas. Ms. Stanciu has been instrumental in growing Politico Pro, Politico’s premium subscription offering, into a thriving business.
“The premium for people being able to tell you things you don’t know is only going to increase in importance, and no machine is going to do that,” Mr VandeHei said.
Part of the pivot involves restructuring Axios’ leadership team. Sara Kehaulani Goo, the editor-in-chief of the Axios newsroom, will lead the editorial side of events and the operation of new platforms. Aja Whitaker-Moore, the newsroom’s executive editor, will be promoted to editor-in-chief and oversee all published content.
“I’m hoping that the next leg of this journey can really focus on how we take subject matter expertise to the next level,” he said.
Axios was started in 2017 by Mr. VandeHei, co-founder of Politico, along with Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz. In August 2022, Cox Enterprises acquired Axios in a deal that valued the company at $525 million, with its founders remaining as minority shareholders.
Mr. VandeHei said Axios is not currently profitable because of investments in new businesses. The company has continued to hire reporters even as many other news organizations have cut back. An Axios spokeswoman said Axios Local now has nearly two million subscribers across 30 newsletters, and Axios’ national newsletters had about 1.5 million.
In addition to how AI could change the public’s consumption of news, many media companies are struggling to figure out how to deal with the absorption of their content by AI chatbots. The New York Times, for example, sued Microsoft and OpenAI in December for copyright infringement, alleging that millions of articles were used, without authorization, to train the tech companies’ chatbots.
Mr VandeHei said that while he believed publications should be compensated for the original intellectual property, “this is not a make or break issue”. He said Axios had spoken to several AI companies about potential deals, but “nothing that’s imminent.”
“One of the big mistakes a lot of media companies have made over the last 15 years has been worrying too much about how we get paid by other platforms that eat our lunch as opposed to figuring out how we eat people’s lunch by having a superior product “, he said.
