Where is the value of media going?

Rapid changes in the use of AI, content types, data usage, workflows and infrastructure are doing much more than changing the way work is structured; they are redefining where the value of our media is to be found in the future.

Source Ouverte, through a process of close analysis and industry discussion, exists to understand where this value is created, where it is sometimes lost, and how best to harness it.

An initiative by Upgrade Media, supported by WordPress VIP.

Why Source Ouverte?

For twenty years we, the media, have mainly been busy digitising what we were largely already doing. Publishing faster, distributing across more platforms, measuring audiences, developing subscription offerings, and adapting content to better suit the new media possibilities.

Artificial intelligence isn’t simply the next phase in that evolution. It is so much more, and demands a more radical and complete response if we are to survive and thrive.  AI is transforming the way information is produced and repurposed. It is also changing the way in which information is searched for, found, assembled, distributed and sometimes consumed without even touching the media outlet that produced it.

One question therefore becomes central: where is the value of our media shifting to?

This is the question that Source Ouverte is here to help answer.

Source Ouverte is an editorial initiative and a community created by Upgrade Media, with the support of WordPress VIP.

Yes we can produce more than ever before, but to what end?

An increasing proportion of content can now be summarised by search engines, assistants or agents. A large amount of daily information can simply be automatically pulled together and spat out as AI content.  Competing with that risks drowning the brand itself in a sea of slop.

But just because some content can be satisfactorily substituted by AI, doesn’t mean that all content loses value. Some of our output actually gains in value every time another AI agent spews out identikit info. 

An exclusive investigation, an individual’s recognised expertise, proprietary data, a direct relationship with a community, a useful service or knowledge accumulated over many years: these are way harder to replicate.

The challenge, therefore, is less about producing ever more content and more about understanding what, amongst the content a media organisation already possesses or could build, deserves greater investment.

This is where Source Ouverte comes in.

Realising the value that content can represent

AI is also changing the nature of content. An article is no longer just a page intended to be read. It can be queried, linked to archives, used by a bot or integrated into a new service or format. Increasingly it will be up to the user to decide how they want to experience the information, and the role of a publisher in presenting it will change accordingly.

Editorial quality remains essential, that is understood. But the value of content now also lies in its ability to be found, understood, linked to, and reused. Which means technical attributes like metadata, attribution, taxonomies, version history, structured data and documentation promptly cease to be peripheral, and instead become key issues to the way we structure and release the value of content.

To see this change in action we only have to look to our archives. Long regarded as a digital-dust gathering repository to be preserved, or possibly republished, they can now be searched, cross-referenced and transformed into new products or services.

Media organisations know how to measure the performance of their content streams. They are increasingly learning to measure the value of their archives.

The CMS is more than a workhorse; it has become a strategic decision

For as long as most of us have been in the business the CMS has long been seen as the place where content is written, stored and published. That role has been augmented as more tools have been added, but with AI in the mix it is now not only the environment that has to make it all happen, but the means of getting an instant overview of what is, and what could be produced. 

The CMS is the authoritative version of what the media organisation possesses, and that makes it a strategic tool as well as a production system. 

Tools are multiplying, but each and every new tool, platform, or workflow risks creating its own silo. Chatbots, document databases, marketing tools, recommendation engines, agents, and links to external platforms all potentially create new flows with little supervision or version control.

The problem is not the proliferation of systems. It arises when the same information has to be managed multiple times. CMSs, APIs, data architectures, knowledge graphs and new protocols must therefore be assessed less for their feature sets than for their ability to orchestrate the whole system without multiplying dependencies, duplicates, and manual tasks.

SaaS, proprietary or open source: there is no one-size-fits-all answer. But the choice of technology is no longer the preserve of the CTO; it is profoundly strategic

Automation does not automatically mean simplification

This transformation has a direct impact on editorial work. Over the past twenty years, new tools, formats and channels have been added one after the other. The same piece of news must now be published, adapted, distributed, enriched and measured across multiple platforms.

AI promises to reduce this workload. But automating a workflow that no one has actually defined does not guarantee that it will become simpler.

We can add tools and end up creating more work. We can automate a task without removing the previous step. We can deploy agents without being able to demonstrate what they have actually replaced.

The question is therefore no longer simply: where do we use AI?

It becomes: what has it eliminated, what has it added, how do we know, and what have we learnt?

Mapping workflows, measuring manual tasks and documenting the benefits are becoming strategic functions.

The transition from assistance to delegation

Another shift is already underway. The first generative AIs essentially produced responses. Agents can now access tools, consult data and trigger actions.

An assistant can suggest a headline. An agent connected to the media organisation’s systems can search an archive, edit content, enrich metadata or trigger an operation.

The question is therefore no longer simply: ‘What is the AI allowed to say?’

It becomes: ‘What is the AI allowed to do, on whose behalf, and who can stop it?’

Permissions, identities, traceability and accountability become editorial and organisational issues as much as technical ones.

A media organisation’s infrastructure must now govern not only what its human users do, but also what they can (and do) delegate to their machines.

Technology alone will not set you apart

CMSs, agents, response engines, language models and automation tools will become increasingly accessible to everyone. Simply having the same technologies as your competitors will not, in itself, be enough to create value.

The real question remains fundamentally editorial and economic: what does a media organisation know, understand, possess or maintain with its audience that others cannot easily replicate?

And following closely from that: an organisation and its infrastructure truly enable it to capitalise on this?

An exceptional archive that cannot be searched remains a dormant asset. Proprietary data that cannot be linked to content remains under-utilised. Expertise that disappears with the person who possesses it remains fragile. A relationship with the audience left to the platforms remains indirect.

Powerful technology layered on top of a poor workflow does not magically create value. It is at the intersection of these questions that Source Ouverte is situated.

Making the effort to really understand now, so we don’t suffer for our sins later

Source Ouverte is neither an observatory for new technologies, nor a catalogue of tools. Our role is to look closely and fully understand what happens when these technologies are introduced into organisations.

We speak to the executives who decide on investments, the editorial managers who decide what is still worth producing, the product and data teams who transform content into experiences, the technical teams who keep it all running, and the journalists who experience the consequences of these decisions every day.

We are just as interested in what works, as what doesn’t. In assets that are gaining value, as much as audiences that are falling away. In new ways of using content and new revenue streams as much as in the tools that make them possible. Above all we ask about the organisational decisions that lie behind what are all too often presented as mere technical choices.

Our industry interviewees are our sources. It’s their experience that informs our analyses and our discussions. In return, we ask the members of this community to share their own experiments, their figures, their difficulties and their successes.

No one yet knows precisely what form the next media model will take. But we can already see where value is disappearing, where it is holding firm and where it is beginning to shift.

This is where Source Ouverte will collate, clarify, and draw its conclusions.