For publishing managers, the study sends out an alarming warning signal: traditional search engine marketing is rapidly losing its strategic importance.

• Traditional SEO has dropped from 17th place to 33rd place.

• Helpful Content drops 22 places (from 25th to 47th).

• In contrast, AI Search (ranked 2nd) and newcomer GEO (ranked 5th) have shot to the very top.

The reason: the phenomenon of ‘zero-click searches’ is increasing rapidly overall (although the study does not provide any figures on this). Users no longer search for information in order to click on blue links, but expect synthesised answers directly from AI systems (such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews).

What does this mean for publishers? Anyone who measures AI search in the same way as traditional SEO is falling prey to a dangerous illusion of accuracy. What matters is no longer just clicks on one’s own domain, but whether the publisher’s own content, research and specialist reports are cited and processed by Large Language Models (LLMs) as an authoritative source. GEO thus becomes a discipline of ‘Brand & Content Authority’.

One striking finding of the study is the decline in the popularity of traditional marketing buzzwords:

• Content marketing is in freefall: still in second place in the summer of 2025, it has fallen to 18th place (-16 places) in the latest survey.

• Storytelling has seen a massive decline: it has plummeted from 6th to 16th place. Only 40 per cent (down from 79 per cent) now consider storytelling to be of primary relevance.

This by no means implies that good content has become worthless. Rather, the era of ‘low-quality content factories’ – which churned out pure SEO texts on an assembly line – is over. AI can generate unstructured, run-of-the-mill texts at the touch of a button.

The new strategy for publishers: RAG Systems

Successful media and brand examples (the study cites companies such as Kraft Heinz with its ‘TasteMaker’ RAG engine) demonstrate how AI scaling works effectively: they utilise Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). By linking the AI model to the publisher’s own, copyright-protected knowledge database and archive, it is possible to create brand-compliant, highly personalised articles, newsletters and social media assets in a matter of seconds – whilst ensuring full brand safety and IP protection.

A look at the TV landscape reveals an extremely sharp divide between established, tried-and-tested formats and highly experimental ones:

• LinkedIn (75 per cent active / +3 per cent planned): The undisputed number one. For B2B publishers, specialist media and reader revenue in the B2B sector, LinkedIn is the critical infrastructure for thought leadership and direct sales.

• Email marketing (72% active / +4% planned): Email remains the most valuable first-party asset. As third-party cookies disappear, the newsletter is the most powerful tool for building customer loyalty and driving conversions for subscriptions.

• Podcasts (25 per cent active / +10 per cent planned): With a relative growth intention of over 40 per cent, audio/podcasts are the most dynamic channel of expansion for media companies looking to retain subscribers.

• TikTok (23% active, high engagement rate): According to the analysis, it achieved an average user engagement rate of 4.9% (compared with 1.1% for LinkedIn and 1.8% for Instagram). Whilst TikTok is a divisive topic, it is indispensable for B2C publishers looking to reach younger target audiences.

In the field of CRM, there has been a marked shift from defensive regulatory issues towards proactive infrastructure:

• Data protection (from 11th to 42nd place) and consent management (from 39th to 68th place) have fallen sharply – they are now regarded as standard requirements (‘basic requirements’) that have already been met.

• The winners are first-party data (ranked 19th, up 13 places), the 360° customer view (ranked 15th, up 8 places) and predictive analytics (ranked 27th, up 8 places).

Developing ‘Single Customer Views’ within the publishing house

Case studies featured in the presentation (such as Virgin Atlantic and Adidas) demonstrate what matters most to publishers when it comes to reader marketing: linking all touchpoints (website visits, newsletter clicks, event attendance, subscription history) within a Customer Data Platform (CDP). Only then is proactive churn prevention possible – one can identify intentions to cancel before the subscriber explicitly cancels their subscription.

AI agents in publishing sales (B2B & advertising)

When it comes to marketing adverts, sponsorship and B2B subscriptions, AI agents are revolutionising the work of sales teams. As best practice shows, AI tools automatically analyse purchasing behaviour and the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), identify website visits by decision-makers and provide the sales team with specific ways to approach contacts in real time.