Bold Call: AI will rewrite publishers’ websites in 2026

We’re calling it: 2026 will be the year AI remakes publishers’ websites — and reader experiences. 

Publishers like Forbes, Newsweek, Time and The Washington Post are already adding AI tools and features to their websites, but this year those AI-driven onsite experiments will only accelerate. Core to these changes — on their homepages and beyond — will be adding more personalization to their sites using AI. And for some, the end goal isn’t just personalization, but a site that anticipates reader needs, and interacts with visitors in real time.

“I think what shifts when it comes to personalization is that it becomes a filter or an input,” said Mike Dyer, The Washington Post’s new chief product officer. News publishers have to balance giving readers what editors believe readers need to know, and what readers themselves want to consume, he said. “What a site might look like in the not-too-distant future is the constant balance of those things… Editorial point of view will go from being the organizing principle to a critical filter of personalization,” Dyer said.

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