Advertising-funded is a business model in which readers or viewers pay nothing and advertisers pay for their attention. The publisher earns by the visit: each session shows ads or sends a referral, so revenue follows the size of the audience and how often it comes back. The product is the audience.
SqueezedAI squeezes it: when a search engine answers the question on its own page, fewer readers click through, and every lost visit is a lost chance to show an ad.
How it makes money
An ad-funded publisher runs a toll road with no toll. Readers drive through free; advertisers pay to put up signs along the way. The business is the traffic, so the question that matters most is where the traffic comes from.
For much of the web, the answer has been search. A reader asks a question, the search engine sends them to a page, and the page earns from the visit. That arrangement worked because the search engine needed somewhere to send people. AI changes the arrangement: an answer engine can summarize the page at the top of the results, and the reader may never make the trip.
The visit that did not happen
People Inc., the publisher of PEOPLE, Allrecipes and Investopedia, measures its audience in Core Sessions, visits to its biggest sites. Session-based revenue, it explains, "is related to advertisements served or performance marketing referrals initiated during a session." In the quarter ended June 30, 2026, Core Sessions fell to 1,707 million from 2,202 million, down 22%. The company is direct about the cause: "lower impression volumes driven by a 22% decline in Core Sessions, due primarily to the impact of the increasing prominence of Google AI Overviews on Google search sessions."
This did not start that quarter. For 2025 as a whole, the company reported a 5% decline in Core Sessions with the same explanation, and it expects AI Overviews to keep weighing on sessions and advertising revenue. Across the first half of 2026, Core Sessions were down 20%.
Where the money went instead
Digital revenue did not fall with the traffic, and the reason is the most useful part of the filing. Digital advertising revenue held almost flat, at $174.2 million against $174.8 million, as higher ad rates and direct-sold campaigns made up for fewer visits. Performance marketing rose 12% to $68.8 million. And licensing and other revenue, which needs no visit at all, rose 23% to $47.0 million.
"The increase in Licensing and Other revenue was due primarily to improved performance of Apple News+ and content syndication partners and from the contribution of a content partnership with Meta that was signed in the fourth quarter of 2025." The content is reaching readers through other companies' products, and the publisher is being paid by those companies instead of by the click. Total revenue was $416.7 million, down 2%, pulled down mostly by print, which fell 16%.
How it fails
An advertising-funded model fails when the audience stops arriving and nothing replaces the visit. Higher ad rates can cover a smaller audience for a while, but a rate is a price on a shrinking quantity. The filings show the pressure building over consecutive periods, which is what turns a bad quarter into a change in the model.
Our read
AI is not taking the reader from the publisher. It is taking the trip. The reader still gets the publisher's answer, often in the publisher's words, but on someone else's page, and a model that earns by the visit cannot bill for a visit that never happened.
People Inc. shows the way out as well as the problem: get paid where the content is read, not where it is hosted. Licensing, syndication and partnerships turn the publisher from a destination into a supplier. That is a different business, with fewer and larger customers who can drive a hard bargain. For any company that lives on search traffic, the question for this year's plan is simple: what share of revenue depends on a click that an answer engine could make unnecessary, and who would pay for the content if the click went away?
Questions
- What is an advertising-funded business model?
- Readers or viewers pay nothing and advertisers pay for their attention. The publisher earns by the visit, so revenue follows the size of the audience and how often it returns.
- How are Google AI Overviews affecting publishers?
- People Inc. says Core Sessions on its biggest sites fell 22% in the quarter ended June 30, 2026, due primarily to the increasing prominence of Google AI Overviews, after a 5% decline in 2025 for the same reason.
- How can an ad-funded publisher replace lost search traffic?
- By getting paid where its content is read. At People Inc., licensing and other revenue rose 23% to $47.0 million in the quarter ended June 30, 2026, from Apple News+, syndication partners and a content partnership with Meta.
Sources
- People Inc. (SEC EDGAR), Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 (2026-08-03)
- People Inc., then IAC Inc. (SEC EDGAR), Form 10-K for 2025 (2026-02-20)
Every figure and quotation on this page traces to these filings. “Our read” is Stratrix’s judgment, drawn from them. Analysis and data, not advice.
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