September 2026 edition
State of AI in Media & Publishing
A free monthly report on how AI is reshaping the publishing web, from crawler policy and licensing to the AI already running inside publisher infrastructure.
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The September 2026 edition runs to 56 pages. The PDF starts downloading the moment you submit, and this form always hands out the newest edition.
- Who blocks AI crawlers, who publishes llms.txt, and whether anyone reads it
- The AI already running inside publisher infrastructure, from public DNS records
- Real-user Core Web Vitals for every publisher with field data
- The deals, lawsuits and search-traffic shifts shaping 2026, and what to watch next
Three numbers from the September edition
7.3%
of publishers have put AI to work company-wide
Plenty of teams are experimenting, but only 7 in 100 publishers show AI in use across the business. The head start is still there to take.
24.6%
have set rules for AI crawlers
One publisher in four tells AI companies what they may take from its site. The other three leave that decision to the AI companies.
−33%
less Google search traffic to news in a year
AI assistants are not making up the difference: all of them together send under 1% of publisher traffic.
More from this edition
- 13.6%
- publish an llms.txt file, yet 97% of those files get zero AI requests.
- 39.3%
- of publishers with real-user data pass Core Web Vitals on mobile, against 57.5% on desktop.
- ~40%
- of AI content-licensing deals signed in 2026 still include training rights, as the market moves to live retrieval.
Inside the report
56 pages. Every figure sourced.
Charts, tables and plain-language analysis you can take straight into a planning meeting. Each finding says where it came from and what that source can and cannot see.
- Measured, not surveyed
- Technology fingerprints, public DNS records, robots.txt and llms.txt files, and Chrome’s real-user speed data.
- Read against the industry
- Public reporting, deal announcements and court filings put each measurement in context.
- A new edition every month
- The form always sends the newest edition, so the numbers you quote are current.
Monthly report
State of AI in Media & Publishing
Stay ahead of the latest AI trends and insights in media and publishing. Subscribe and never miss an update.
Publishers are being asked to build app-like, headless, agent-ready experiences on a PHP-and-jQuery foundation. The modernization bill is coming due just as the traffic model collapses.
What’s inside this edition
- The external record
2026 in eight storylines: Google Zero, the first content marketplaces, ChatGPT ads, new licensing deals and a wave of lawsuits.
- What media leaders said
The five postures publishers took toward AI, in the words of the executives who took them.
- The technology stack
What runs the publishing web, fingerprinted from live publisher homepages.
- AI inside the infrastructure
Verified AI-vendor enrollments, the AI readers actually meet on the page, and who blocks the crawlers.
- Web performance
Real-user Core Web Vitals for every publisher with field data, and what speed is worth in revenue.
- Infrastructure & the vendor ecosystem
Mail platforms, sender authentication and the vendor trail publishers leave in public DNS.
- The post-cookie readiness gap
Who has the consent and first-party data stack now that consent signals gate Google Ads revenue.
- Outlook
What to watch next, from crawler pricing to the shift from training deals to live retrieval.
- Methodology & sources
How the domain universe was built, what each measurement can and cannot see, and every source cited.
Monthly report
State of AI in Media & Publishing
Stay ahead of the latest AI trends and insights in media and publishing. Subscribe and never miss an update.
About the report
Free monthly report
Get the September edition
56 pages on AI in media and publishing, free, and always the newest edition when you ask for it.