USA TODAY (TDAY) Citi’s 2026 Global TMT Conference summary

Strategic direction and digital transformation

• Focus on creating unique, relevant content to build a large digital audience, leveraging both national and local strengths.

• Strategy centers on growing audience scale, collecting user data, and turning it into actionable intelligence for personalization and monetization.

• Five diversified digital revenue streams: subscriptions, advertising, e-commerce, marketing services, and content licensing/syndication.

• Rapid changes in the search landscape, especially due to AI, are impacting traffic and revenue, with both challenges and opportunities.

• Ongoing efforts to reduce reliance on search, especially Google, and diversify traffic sources through social and newsletters.

Financial performance and revenue trends

• Same-store revenue showed improvement over several quarters but dipped in Q2 due to variability in AI licensing and search changes.

• Digital-only subscriptions achieved record ARPU, with volumes stabilizing and signs of future growth.

• Digital advertising revenue declined 9% in Q2, attributed to search behavior changes, programmatic partner removal, and Google algorithm updates.

• AI content licensing remains nascent and lumpy, with Q2 growth at 20% year-over-year but less than Q1 due to non-recurring deals.

• Free cash flow and net income grew year-over-year, reflecting operational control despite top-line volatility.

AI, technology partnerships, and content strategy

• AI licensing deals completed with Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, with more expected this year; future deals anticipated with Apple, Anthropic, OpenAI, and others.

• AI licensing deals are highly variable in structure, including performance-based, archive, and real-time content arrangements.

• Partnership with Palantir leverages Foundry software to turn user data into actionable intelligence, aiming to double revenue per consumer.

• Palantir-driven personalization and monetization pilots are live in two markets, with expected revenue impact by Q4.

• Content is optimized for both human and machine audiences, with a focus on format and structure to support AI licensing and bot access.