AI summaries and answer engines are diminishing publishers' ability to reach new, indirect readers, prompting publishers to seek alternative channels. Mobile apps are emerging as a channel with new potential. Complex, acquired by NTWRK from BuzzFeed for $108.6 million, launched a new app on August 5 that aggregates website, social, shop, YouTube, and event content. The app enables vertical video viewing and shopping directly from videos, articles, and photos. Over the coming quarter the app will add exclusive content and product drops; over the next year it will unlock memberships, event access, pop-up shops, and live shopping. Publishers view apps as areas less vulnerable to search algorithms and AI.
The advent of AI is putting pressure on publishers to find new ways to connect with their audience, as AI summaries and answer engines are making it harder to reach new, indirect readers. Mobile apps are emerging as a channel where publishers see new potential. That includes Complex - the entertainment and pop culture title e-commerce company NTWRK bought from BuzzFeed Inc. in a $108.6 million all-cash deal last year - which launched a new app on August 5.
Complex isn't the first to do this. Dotdash Meredith's People title launched an app in April, with scrollable videos and exclusive content and video franchises. The resurgence of mobile apps is another example of what's old is new again in the publishing world. But this time around, it's not the shift to mobile that's pushing publishers to launch apps. It's the shift to AI.
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