Where publishers are seeing AI’s real value – so far

2025-09-05. With all the investment in AI in the last few years, publishers are still struggling with measuring the technology’s true value – and its ROI. While much of the industry discourse has focused on understanding the technology itself, the harder question of measuring real impact and financial returns has remained largely unexplored. This report addresses that critical gap.

by Dean Roper dean.roper@wan-ifra.org | October 1, 2025

The media industry is investing heavily in generative AI. Headlines promise revolutionary change, AI budgets get approved, and newsrooms run experiments. Yet beneath the surface lies a question that has proven surprisingly difficult to answer: What is the actual return on investment?

We surveyed 100+ media leaders to gauge where they are seeing real value. We also present 10 global case studies where publishers have seen either “Hard ROI” or “Soft ROI”. Ezra Eeman, WAN-IFRA’s lead on everything AI and Research Editor Neha Gupta authored this report. Thanks to Stibo DX for their support.

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Dean Roper

dean.roper@wan-ifra.org