End of Print for AJC, Homepage Personalization, and the Challenges of CROs | Adrian, your AI curator

Atlanta Journal-Constitution to End Print, Go Fully Digital

New York Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution to Quit Print Cold Turkey

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will stop printing its newspaper on Dec. 31, shifting entirely to digital after more than 150 years in print.

Publisher Andrew Morse, who delayed the transition when he joined in 2023, now says the move is essential to accelerate growth, despite print still being profitable. Backed by Cox Enterprises’ $150 million investment, the newsroom has expanded its digital teams, local bureaus, and new products. The paper counts 115,000 subscribers, including 75,000 digital-only, but is far from its 500,000 goal by 2026.

Challenges include declining print circulation, a 40% drop in Google traffic tied to generative AI, and financial pressures. While about 30 print staff will be cut, the outlet will continue offering an e-paper and focus on building digital subscriptions and revenue. Morse summed it up: “I love print, but I love journalism more.”

The Power and Pitfalls of Personality-Led Newsletters

Media Voices, How The Economist and Financial Times manage personality-driven newsletters

At a recent Publisher Newsletter Summit, editors from The Economist and Financial Times argued that personality-driven newsletters deepen reader loyalty and even boost subscriptions.

While The Economist has traditionally avoided bylines, it now embraces newsletters like Bartleby that showcase individual voices supported by editorial teams. The FT sees success when experts build authority through analysis rather than self-promotion, showing personality can mean credibility, not celebrity.

Both publishers balance star writers with strong brand identity to guard against audience loss if talent leaves. Challenges remain—some journalists resist the extra workload, and audience expectations can be intense—but data shows newsletter subscribers are more engaged and more likely to renew.

Personalization Drives Engagement and Revenue at NPG Digital

The Audiencers, Why 80% of our homepage is now personalized — and how that’s changing everything

Germany’s NPG Digital has transformed its news app homepage by making 80% of it personalized, tailoring content to individual readers through regional choices, topic preferences, machine learning, and AI-generated summaries.

The results show it’s working: paywall hits are up 10%, click-through rates on personalized teasers are three times higher, and subscribers’ active days have increased by 28%. Importantly, the approach works for both paying and non-logged-in users, making personalization the entry point into the reader lifecycle.

Editorial collaboration and A/B testing were crucial to rollout success. NPG is now extending personalization to newsletters, push alerts, and conversational AI features, with the long-term goal of delivering tailored experiences across every channel, positioning personalization as the foundation for modern news products.

The challenges for Chief Revenue Officers

The Rebooting, The Total Monetization Mandate

A new survey of 65 publishing executives shows that today’s chief revenue officers face a “total monetization” challenge—balancing ads, subscriptions, branded content, events, and more at a time when Google traffic and ad demand are falling.

The study shows that most CROs still struggle with silos, unclear decision-making, and no shared measure of success. Few use ARPU (average revenue per user), even though it’s the clearest way to track total value per reader. Tradeoffs between ads and subscriptions are often decided ad hoc, and alignment across teams is rare.

On top of this, AI and search changes are already cutting revenue, pushing publishers to focus on direct audience relationships and branded content. The bottom line: growth now depends on breaking silos, using common metrics, and making every reader more valuable.

AI Chatbots Move From Workflow to Reader Engagement

Nieman Lab, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, newsrooms are experimenting with conversational AI

A new FT Strategies report, based on case studies from 16 newsrooms in the AI Launchpad program, shows that many publishers shifted from using AI mainly for back-end efficiency to building reader-facing chatbots.

• Al-Masry Al-Youm in Egypt launched an Arabic-language chatbot with Miso.ai to navigate its 3 million-article archive.
• Daily Maverick in South Africa tested a customer service agent with Bridged Media that worked well in accuracy tests but failed to reduce email volume, prompting plans to embed it directly into inboxes.
• Ruhr Nachrichten in Germany built a local news chatbot surfacing recent stories, achieving strong engagement (91% query success, 31% clickthroughs) but also complaints about errors, leading to clearer disclaimers.

The report underlines that while AI offers new ways to boost engagement and discovery, misuse risks deepening already fragile trust in news.