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DMG Media’s Danny Groom on how AI is changing content and talent strategy

The Mail has historically been a publication built on reach and high traffic volumes. But with significant headwinds from changes in search and discovery driven by Google and AI advances, DMG Media are having to rethink their model.

Publisher and CEO of DMG Media Danny Groom outlined to the audience at The Definitive AI Forum the ways AI is changing the business. You can listen to the full session below, or by searching for ‘The Publisher Podcast’ on your podcast app.

Personalisation for quality over quantity

The first area Groom said that DMG Media are experimenting heavily in is personalisation. He thinks this could potentially be game-changing as it becomes more sophisticated. The company is currently testing an AI-powered dynamic paywall in Australia, which he believes will have a significant impact over the next 18 months.

But more notable is how Groom perceives the opportunities AI offers personalisation when it comes to content quantity and quality.

“The Mail digitally has been built on reach and mass publication,” he said, explaining that publishers are almost all moving to models which have less emphasis on volume. “I think because of everything that’s happening with particularly Google, then we’re having to slightly rethink [the model]. So we are literally producing fewer articles.

“Once you get into that mindset, you have to be more targeted, and the reader wants to be more targeted. That’s something more and more publishers are embracing, and it’s just inevitable that we’re heading in that direction [too].”

This rethink is paying off in other areas of the business. Groom noted that it was smoothing workflows and allowing greater efficiencies, and this has a positive impact on their print newspaper output. “It is creating a flywheel of increased talent, and lifting the quality,” he pointed out.

“I think we have a very clear idea of what our readers like now, because of the way that AI is enabling the data and personalisation side of it. So I think, perversely, the print product has actually become better and stronger because of that.”

From research to headline optimisation, AI can be a great help during the creation process. Using AI to fully create the content, however, is where Groom sees a clear red line. “I cannot see a world in which a quality publisher can do that,” he emphasised. 

Nurturing talent

With vast amounts of ad money expected to flow to creators in the coming years, savvy publishers are looking to bring in or grow their own creator talent. 

DMG Media has recently hired around 60 young creators to build vertical channels around gaming, entertainment and money under the unit DMG New Media. As well as growing new verticals, the group is also tasked with building audiences on the main social media accounts, with the aim of making more money through sponsorships and branded content. 

These relationships potentially offer a great deal to both sides, even if creators are ‘bigger’ than some of the organisations they partner with. As the Reuters Institute points out, publishers like the Mail can reassure brands with a creator-like offer, backed by the credibility of a traditional news organisation.

“I would imagine within the next three years, we’ll see an influencer writing a column in a national newspaper,” Groom theorised. 

As for how their current staff are adapting, Groom said that even their more mature journalists are “very enthusiastically embracing the new world; they’re all over TikTok, doing lots of long-form videos etc.”

He explained that there was an understanding that the younger audience needed to be brought along with them, even if that means building followings for people which may end up ‘bigger than the vehicle’. “Whether we like it or not, that’s the portal that [young audiences] see through, which they see news and consume news,” Groom said. “The challenge – and the opportunity – is to pull these young people into our ecosystem, and introduce them to our platforms.”

Connecting AI innovation with the business

Nurturing talent in-house is important beyond just the journalists. Groom explained that DMG Media had set up an innovation team around 18 months ago with a view to giving them space to play and to try new ideas.

This has been a learning curve for the business. Initially, this team was set up separately “in a room in a basement, just making things like mad professors, and there was no connection with the rest of the business,” Groom shared. The group were coming up with brilliant ideas, but which weren’t suitable and in some cases, not even relevant.

 “What we’re trying to do now is to have show-and-tells, where they can show what they’re working on, and obviously getting feedback, as well as lots of hackathons just to get everyone to go on the journey with them,” he said, noting that this had been one of the biggest steps to maximising AI success. “Once you actually connect what they’re doing with the desired output, it becomes a lot more efficient and a lot stronger.”

“It’s interesting how they’ve gone from the space where they’re trying to create big things, and build spaceships and all the rest of it, to where they’re now very targeted, thinking very clearly about what they’re trying to do, and also working very closely with the newsroom as well.” 

DMG’s innovation team is very young; something Groom said is often lost in the AI discussion. He was incredulous at how these “incredibly smart, talented young people” were coming in and doing things way beyond his level of knowledge that will ultimately help sustain the industry and push it forward.

As for his biggest mistake so far with AI, Groom said that he initially believed too much of the hype. “We genuinely thought that this was going to be the big meteor that was going to blow us all out the water,” he said, before pointing out: “You can’t run a business – and you can’t operate – from a position of fear.”

Listen to the full session in this week’s episode of The Publisher Podcast, available wherever you find podcasts.

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