Business Insider’s big bet against aggregation

Business Insider has made a stark strategic shift, moving away from aggregation and toward breaking its own stories. Nieman Lab reports that original content now makes up more than eighty percent of what the publication produces—up from about forty percent in twenty twenty-four. The pivot is driven by AI: tools like Google's Overviews and ChatGPT can now summarize trends faster than any human aggregator, draining the traffic those pieces once received. So the publication has instead doubled down on original reporting, landing seven hundred eighty-eight scoops last year, and exclusive stories now see nearly double the subscription conversions of non-exclusive ones. But the shift has been costly: Business Insider laid off twenty-one percent of its newsroom in May of twenty twenty-five, then another ten employees the following year, prompting CEO Barbara Peng to step down. The move reflects a broader industry consensus—as Reuters found in surveying global publishers, most now believe survival lies in being distinctive, even at the cost of smaller reach.

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