Sara Guaglione

1 week ago | digiday.com | Sara Guaglione

This Media Briefing covers the latest in media trends for Digiday+ members and is distributed over email every Thursday at 10 a.m. ET. More from the series →This week’s Media Briefing looks at advertising spend going to publishers, and which categories are faring well and not so well. Market checkWith President Donald Trump’s tariffs looming, publishers are dealing with some jitters from their advertisers. Fortunately, that hasn’t resulted in a bad second quarter for publishers.

1 week ago | digiday.com | Sara Guaglione

Google’s rollout of AI Mode to search has rattled publishers, reinforcing fears of a future where the platform stops sending traffic to publishers’ sites outright in lieu of their AI-generated summaries. While that may still be a ways away, Google’s other generative AI search feature AI Overviews has already given publishers a glimpse into a future of Google search without the classic blue links. Daily Mail reported a nearly 44% lower clickthrough rate since the debut of AI Overviews.

1 week ago | digiday.com | Krystal Scanlon |Sara Guaglione

It’s only been six months since Perplexity launched its ad business, but advertisers are already hungry for it to grow up fast and prove it’s more than just another shiny object. Six media buyers Digiday spoke to say they want to see more from the AI-powered search engine, which has been tested by the likes of Indeed, Whole Foods, Universal McCann and PMG since November, when they signed up as the first brand and agency partners to the platform.

1 week ago | digiday.com | Sara Guaglione

No apocalypse yet: Google’s March core update has brought manageable search traffic dips for some publishers, with AI Overviews dragging and Discover picking up some slack. Google’s rollout of its generative AI search experience, AI Mode, in a new tab last week has stoked referral concerns, but for now, search traffic remains relatively stable, according to four publishing execs.

2 weeks ago | digiday.com | Sara Guaglione

Of the traffic OpenAI’s generative AI platforms send to external websites, 83% went to news and media sites in April, up from 64% in January, according to Similarweb data shared with Digiday. Referral traffic from ChatGPT also continues to grow this year. ChatGPT sent 243.8 million visits to 250 news and media websites in April 2025, up 98% from 123.2 million visits this January, according to David Carr, senior insights manager at data analytics company Similarweb.