The Media Copilot

Richard Murphy, CEO and President of the Alliance for Audited Media, leads a media assurance group focused on trust and ethical AI certification. He discusses why standards are needed as AI becomes operational in content creation. Short, clear takes cover the eight pillars of responsible AI, when to disclose AI use, how certification audits work, and how standards can restore advertiser and audience trust.

AI is reshaping how people search, shop, and consume information and that shift is starting to challenge the business models that have supported media for decades.In this episode of The Media Copilot, host Pete Pachal sits down with Colin Jeavons, Founder and Chairman of Nomix Group, to explore what happens when AI becomes the middle layer between publishers and their audiences.From the collapse of traditional ad economics to the rising value of trust, this conversation breaks down how discovery is evolving, why some publishers may struggle to adapt, and where new opportunities are emerging across commerce, subscriptions, and AI-driven experiences.What we cover • How AI is changing search, discovery, and media economics • Why CPM-based advertising is under pressure • The growing importance of trust in content • The future of subscriptions and micropayments • How commerce and AI shopping may evolve • What publishers need to rethink right nowTakeawaysThe old web rewarded volume. The next era may reward credibility.In Jeavons’ view, AI is speeding up a market correction that was already underway. Publishers built around commodity content and low value ad impressions face increasing risk. But organizations that create trusted reporting, specialized expertise, or high intent commerce content may still have a path forward.The future, he suggests, will not be defined by whether AI destroys publishing. It will be defined by which publishers learn how to operate in a world where attention is filtered through intelligent systems, trust carries a premium, and audiences are willing to pay for what feels indispensable.About the 👤 Guest  🔗 Colin Jeavons  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinjeavons/🔗 Nomix GroupWebsite: https://nomix.groupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nomix-group/About the show: To explore more conversations like this and see what’s new, visit the freshly updated Media Copilot website at mediacopilot.ai. You’ll find new episodes, expanded resources, and tools designed for journalists, communicators, and media leaders navigating the fast-changing world of AI. It’s the home base for everything Media Copilot and it’s just getting started.Enjoyed this episode?Subscribe to The Media Copilot on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. On YouTube?  Tap the Like button and Subscribe to the YouTube channel.For more AI tools and resources built for media professionals, visit MediaCopilot.ai.Produced by Pete Pachal and Executive Producer Michele MussoEdited by the Musso Media Team Music: “Favorite” by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under CC BY 4.0All rights reserved. © AnyWho Media 2026

Search is changing fast, and AI is at the center of it.Search is no longer just about blue links and ranking on Google. More and more, people are getting their answers directly from AI tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and other answer engines that summarize information, pull citations, and decide what gets surfaced in real time. That means visibility is changing, and so is the value of content.In this episode of The Media Copilot, Pete Pachal speaks with Josh Blyskal, who leads answer engine optimization research at Profound, a company focused on tracking how brands appear inside AI generated answers. Their conversation explores what answer engine optimization really means, how it differs from traditional SEO, and why specificity, utility, and structure now matter more than ever.What We Cover • The shift from traditional search results to AI generated answers • What answer engine optimization (AEO) actually means • How AI tools break prompts into “fan out” searches • Why specificity and structured content matter more than ever • The role of citations and consensus in AI responses • How platforms like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews choose sources • Why Reddit and user generated content still influence AI answers • The growing tension between AI discovery and publisher business models • Opportunities and risks for media organizations in the AI search eraAbout the 👤 Guest Josh Blyskal• Website: https://www.joshblyskal.com• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-blyskal• X: https://twitter.com/joshblyskal• Speaker Deck: https://speakerdeck.com/joshblyLearn More About Profound• https://www.tryprofound.comAbout the show: To explore more conversations like this and see what’s new, visit the freshly updated Media Copilot website at mediacopilot.ai. You’ll find new episodes, expanded resources, and tools designed for journalists, communicators, and media leaders navigating the fast-changing world of AI. It’s the home base for everything Media Copilot and it’s just getting started.Enjoyed this episode?Subscribe to The Media Copilot on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. On YouTube?  Tap the Like button and Subscribe to the YouTube channel.For more AI tools and resources built for media professionals, visit MediaCopilot.ai.Produced by Pete Pachal and Executive Producer Michele MussoEdited by the Musso Media Team Music: “Favorite” by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under CC BY 4.0All rights reserved. © AnyWho Media 2026

Gina Chua, Executive Editor at Large at Semafor and director at the Tow-Knight Center, brings deep newsroom and AI strategy experience. She discusses practical AI tools for copyediting, chart and dataset suggestions, multilingual reporting search, transcript integration, and AI summaries that require human oversight. The conversation covers newsroom workflows, verification limits of language models, and evolving news discovery.

Eva Cicinyte, co-founder and CEO of Gnomi, builds an AI intelligence agent that turns global news, social and financial data into contextual signals. She discusses real-time finance mode for live earnings call analysis, multilingual perspective gaps, avoiding engagement-driven clickbait, and how agents could replace feeds and search while surfacing early market and local signals.

Alex Mahadevan, director of MediaWise and Poynter faculty who leads AI and newsroom ethics work. He talks about how AI reshapes misinformation and newsroom trust. He covers chatbot design and hallucination risks. He explores coding agents, practical automation for small outlets, and the growing divide between AI enthusiasts and skeptics.

Jason Henderson, corporate and transactional attorney who works on AI, copyright, licensing and streaming and also creates media. He discusses why large-scale data harvesting changes copyright, how training inputs differ from model outputs, and when licensing or litigation becomes the likely path. He highlights indemnification, agentic browsing risks, and attribution as a possible way to protect publishers.

Kris Hodgson-Bright, a digital communications professor who teaches AI and immersive storytelling, discusses integrating AI into journalism teaching. He talks about using AI as a research assistant, teaching bias checks and prompt craft, building NotebookLM-style workflows, and immersive formats like 360 video and VR. He balances hopeful uses with concerns about preserving critical thinking.

In this engaging conversation, Kat Downs Mulder, the General Manager of Yahoo News and former Washington Post editor, discusses the evolving landscape of news in an AI-driven era. She highlights Yahoo's efforts in enhancing aggregation and personalization while maintaining trust amid fragmented consumption. Kat emphasizes the significance of diverse content formats, such as audio and video, in driving audience engagement. She also explores the integration of AI's rapid advancements, balancing innovation with journalistic integrity, and the importance of user behavior in shaping news experiences.

Bill Gross, Founder and CEO of ProRata, discusses how AI should financially support creators and the importance of standardizing compensation models. Annelies Jansen, Chief Business Officer at ProRata, dives into RAG-based knowledge graphs and the ethical implications of AI-generated attribution. Meanwhile, Mark Howard, COO of Time, talks about the challenges of licensing, vectorizing archives, and preparing for AI marketplaces. They explore the balance between innovation, consent, and the need for transparency in an ever-evolving digital landscape.