Axios C-Suite: Axios' AI moonshot

• Our revenue, our traffic, our event demand, our engagement, our local expansion are all rising at once. Experimentation is surging companywide. Productivity is way up.

The big picture: We believe we're in a moment of blinding high velocity, with AI advancing so fast and so unpredictably that no one knows anything about the future with high levels of certainty. It's our job and promise to guide you along this journey.

• We're focused on the known knowns about AI and Axios, and moving fast to position the company — and all of you — to be smarter, faster, safer, more agile in whatever future unfolds.
• Companies that don't quickly adapt will struggle and suffer.
• This note is about what we believe and know …

State of play: We're not blind AI optimists. We're clear-eyed realists: We believe there's plenty we still don't know.

• We know the risks and downsides of a technology that's already performing at superhuman levels in some areas, like product prototyping and coding.
• We know it'll cost or change some jobs, some of which we've just previewed.
• We know it'll change consumer behavior in unthinkable ways.
• And we know there's a lot we simply don't know.

But there's lots we do know or strongly believe …

We know the best way we can serve you and our readers is to constantly update you on how we think and use AI. It starts with sharing what we know, acknowledging that what we know evolves weekly.

• We know that AI models, especially frontier versions like Claude Opus 4.6, are exponentially better, smarter and more powerful than most realize. We know our velocity in tech is doubling each month, and our staff-level experimentation is exploding.
• We know the future of high-end media belongs to high-quality, exclusive information and insights produced by reporters with subject matter expertise and trust. We're investing heavily in this and will increase focus and spending on SMEs going forward.
• We know all content still demands a human touch on every piece of content we publish. Trust is priceless.
• We know the models rely on high-quality, high-trust, validated content to think and produce answers and solutions. We know the existing LLMs score Axios very high on these attributes. We're working tirelessly to make our content even more indispensable to readers and therefore to LLMs. We're starting to better know how they read stories and sites like ours.
• We know LLMs are displacing Google search but not yet sending meaningful traffic to media sites. We've negotiated a content licensing deal with OpenAI and are in talks to do the same with others. We know LLMs will be a vital part of media economics in the future. We know the architecture and exclusivity of our content will be highly valuable. But no one knows how an LLM-first world will function, or even on what devices it will live.

What's next: We know companies will be structured and staffed differently in the future as tasks and functions are automated. Axios is no different. You already see this: Our Product-Design-Tech team is doing twice the work with half the size of the team of two years ago.

• But we also know our Great Differentiator is — and forever will be — our people, operating inside our unique culture.

We know we're trying to both grow our reach and revenue while simplifying and automating how we work. We know this can be dizzying for staff, especially when we're growing fast in some areas and moving to automate others. We know this demands clearer, more frequent, more candid updates.

• We know you and our readers are anxious about AI, and rightly so. We know we best serve everyone by working tirelessly to understand and explain the blinding velocity. We also know that by giving you the tools early, providing constant training and updates, and staying agile, we can help everyone stay ahead of the change.
• We know what won't change for you: our vision, our culture, our values, our care for employees. But we know what will change, too: the demand for our whole staff to show aptitude and appetite for constant adaptation. We know we need to provide even more training to guide you there (more on this soon). We will evolve together.

The bottom line: We know the future is going to be wild and wildly uncertain. But we also know Axios will serve as a bigger, brighter, better source of human-vetted and validated truth and employment when the digital dust settles.

• We know we do this by making Axios the best place to work for the best people. And the best place to get informed by the best reporters.

📈 If you're a CEO or on a CEO's team: Apply now to join Jim's new Axios C-Suite weekly newsletter.