Axios CRO Jacquelyn Cameron breaks down how Axios thinks about audience segmentation in an age when every publisher says they’re “audience-focused.”

Jacquelyn explains why Axios organizes around five core personas — influencers, C-suite executives, dealmakers and investors, communicators, and smart local professionals — and how each connects to a product, event, or revenue line. We get into how “no opinion” coverage is a competitive advantage in Washington, how local works when it’s “localized national” rather than pizza-parlor advertising, and how Axios uses AI to turn audience insight into business intelligence.

We also talk about the new entanglement between business and government, why Axios treats live events as “the physical manifestation of the newsroom,” and how its custom GPT gives the sales team daily prospecting hit lists. As Jacquelyn put it, “I want every human to become superhuman.”

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Welcome back to The Rebooting Show.

I am Brian Morrissey.

just a quick reminder, be sure to check out this week's People vs Algorithms.

This is the other podcasts I like to say that I do with Troy Young and

Alex Schleifer, and Anonymous Banker.

Troy was traveling this week, so it was just me and Alex and AB.

Alex and I went into what makes a good media product and why so

many media companies struggle at.

Pulling it off.

and how that's the elephant of the room when we talk about the need to create

direct audience connections, because that has to start with a product that

is worth people coming and seeking out.

so check that out.

if you can, and also AB joins us to discuss, why getting celebrities on a

cap table is usually a terrible idea.

at least I, I think it's a terrible idea, but maybe I'm wrong.

This week I spoke to Jacqueline Cameron, the CRO of Axios.

It is hard to believe, but Axios is going to be nine years old, in January.

and I would even go out on a limb and say that it's now a legacy publication.

considering that it launched all the way back in January, 2017.

The landscape has shifted quite a bit in those nine years, and the format innovation that Axios

brought to the table, also known as smart brevity.

Would seem l suited for an age of AI summarization and an emphasis on human differentiation.

the company is also, it's no longer a nimble upstart.

It's instead owned by Cox.

And, it's also to me like a text oriented brand.

it experimented in an HBO show and it dabbled in podcasts.

It really has remained really focused on, on newsletters, to be honest with

you, at a time when, a lot of others have been branching out into multimedia.

It recently, started a YouTube strategy.

It's a little late to the game, but there's always, space for good execution.

It's also made a big bet on local.

Which continues to be, the hardest of the hard areas of the media business.

And it is also, ramping up a live events business, which Jacqueline and I discuss.

and let's be real, that sector is incredibly saturated now.

lots of publishers are getting into events.

I swear all of our gatherings.

No matter where the conversation starts at our breakfast and dinner

salons, it quickly leads to events.

So events are, a great area, but they are also very crowded.

And finally, you know, the type of advertising that Axios has long relied on.

corporate, public affairs spending is no longer the best.

Keeps.

Kept secret in the industry, you know, since it launched.

Just think Punchbowl, Semafore and Puck have all entered into the fray, along with,

you know, longtime rivals like Politico.

and finally, you know, it.

launched with talk from CEO Jim Vande High that it was gonna do $10,000 a year subscriptions.

Now it did go down the path of, a high price corporate, subscription focused

on communications professionals.

but it's only recently entered into, a consumer oriented subscriptions with vertical subscriptions

for specific Axios products under the Axios Pro.

Umbrella.

So I wanted to talk about all of this with Jacqueline and she went into how Axios is for

all intents and purposes, an influence business.

we get into what the B two I thesis is, that's business to influencers.

and also I really liked how Jacqueline broke out, the five audience

segments that Axios optimizes for.

We also discuss why, not having, an opinion section is a competitive advantage in

Washington DC, and how live programming works when it's designed to inform the right

people, versus just being sponsor driven.

And, we talk about the real business case for doing local at scale and how ai, is.

Being used at Axios to, eliminate a lot of rote work, particularly in the revenue side of the

organization because I think a lot of times we focus just on the news side, but, these tools.

Really, I think the big initial, impact of them will be for the areas around the journalism,

not actually in the actual journalism product.

and then we also talk about membership versus subscriptions.

what Axios, has learned in its return to video, and what it takes

to grow high margin, revenue lines.

So, this is a wide ranging discussion.

I hope you enjoy it.

quick note, we, we recorded this one back in September.

I'm a bit behind on all these great conversations I've had lately.

so that's why I'm gonna be bringing them to you twice a week.

and I want your feedback on them and to see what kinds of podcasts you find most valuable.

You know, I try to go across the spectrum from, you know, revenue leaders at.

Big publishers like Axios to, you know, independent newsletter businesses

and vertical media companies.

'cause I like talking to all of them, honestly.

In any case, would love to hear your feedback.

my email is brian@therebooting.com.

also leave this podcast, the rating or review wherever you get it.

That always helps with discovery and forward it to a friend.

Why not?

Now here's my conversation with Jacqueline.

Jacqueline, thank you for joining me.

Really happy to have you on the rebooting show.

So glad to be here.

Thank you so much for all that you do and for having me today.

Okay, great.

Yes, this is a celebration of me.

we can get back to that later, but let's start with, Axios is over eight years old.

It'll actually be nine years really?

In, in January, which is crazy for me to like think of.

I keep getting older and, but it's no longer sort of a new kid on the block, if you will.

And I went back, I always like to judge the sort of thesis of, of brands when they come out.

And I think Axios got a ton right.

Hmm.

You know?

And.

Basically what I was like listing out some of them.

One was things were too long.

There was a, there was, you know, the, the inverted pyramid story was a lot of like

hamburger helper and not enough hamburger.

And so the idea was we're gonna, we're gonna give you just what you need to know.

And that was the smart brevity bet.

And I think that that proved to be a hundred percent right on.

I think one of the other, Bets or the part of the thesis was that publishers were falling into

what Jim Van Heim memorably called the Crap Trap.

Hmm.

and that was basically when you're chasing traffic in those models, you're inevitably

gonna optimize yourself into some weird places.

One other that I, I've got that email and direct connections to a specific audience

was weirdly still underrated and incredibly powerful, part of media businesses.

I mean,

And you wrote about this earlier today.

I read it.

yes, because I have long been an an email person because I came from the

B2B side where email was always cool.

It's interesting to me that consumer and you guys are sort of in between.

'cause it's more of a professional audience is, you know, really now they

wanna talk about email, email, email.

And I love it.

The other one I've got is that, you know, the niches were, are where the

riches are, particularly when you've got powerful and influential, people.

Again, it's pretty obvious now.

It wasn't then.

Because people were chasing giant audiences and, and the final one is, and then there's

others, but these, I just had to keep it to five, was that specialized ad categories.

Can be really great businesses and, and the specialized ad category that

I have always associated Axios with is the CSR, corporate influence.

I don't know what the umbrella term for it is, but usually it is companies looking to

influence the, regulators, lawmakers, et cetera.

Okay.

It's a different type of advertising they have.

And I wanna get into the, the, that whole ecosystem there.

It's a, it's a parallel ecosystem really.

I, I

It is, public affairs is a good way to describe it.

Mm-hmm.

Public affairs.

We'll, but here's the thing.

You end up having to learn new skills.

Right.

And that's the thing with media, it's like the, the good news, bad news thing.

It's like good news.

You nail everything.

And that means that you have to like learn and master a totally

related but different set of skills.

And that can be in multimedia, you gotta be multimodal these days that can be in.

Subscriptions.

You need a direct revenue source, these days.

And, you know, Axios had started, you know, talking about a 50 50 split.

You know, timing was not like attached to that I, I assume, right.

But, you know, you have to be able to do that.

And then, you know, you've got the AI curve ball.

So let, let, let's get into all of those of those things.

when you're looking at the sort of landscape now, give me like where you think, you

know, the biggest growth opportunities are at this juncture of, of the Axio story.

well, let's first, start with sort of underscoring some

of the things that you mentioned.

When we think about, the big bet that our co-founders made when they founded

us almost nine years ago, to your point, what they had was clarity of vision.

So they knew that if they brought expertise to the table, they presented

it in a way that was not going to waste time nor insult anyone's intelligence.

and we delivered it in a way that would be one-to-one, that the audience would

respond and become incredibly loyal.

we've been able to prove that out over time, Brian, and you see that over and over

where we've had incredible success, the more that we, replicate that very specific

model, when it comes to where we're going, I think that there's still so much incredible

opportunity in the space that is core to our business, which is what I refer to as B two I.

So we talk a lot about B2B in marketing.

We talk a lot about B2C efforts.

but where we demand to win is in what we call B two I so business to influence and there is

still so much opportunity for us to expand there.

Right.

I I've heard it.

B two P puck prefers B two P. B two I, you know, I like B2B, but that's fine.

Like, I know it's like broader and it is a, a different category, but let's, let's dig into

that because, you know, public affairs is one.

Aspect, I would guess of BB two I. And, you know, the Axio story is, you know,

the, the co-founders came from Politico.

they, they, you know, drove the success of a playbook, right?

And playbook to me was an early model of what a lot of successful publishing companies are now.

It's not like it's a carbon copy of it, but Playbook wa was, is like an a daily email.

It was, you know, agenda setting, right?

And it went to an extremely influential audience.

And, that meant that companies clamored to be in.

Playbook, and I'm sure that Jim and Mike and Roy knew the economics of that are pretty great.

That

Right.

that's right.

That.

it's a really crowded market now because that is well known.

now when, when Axios launched, going on nine years ago, there was no substack, there was

no, there was no semaphore, there was no puck.

There was no punch bowl.

there was a politico.

There still is a politico.

A lot of people are, are after this category.

Now, how do you differentiate?

Yeah, that's, that's so important for us to remain

differentiated in this very crowded space.

And, you know, I've been in the, the business of Washington for a very long time.

I cut my teeth at Politico, in this space.

I was with the co-founders back in 2008 when they founded Politico.

And I was there with them in DC for six years, before I moved on.

So.

It's really crowded today.

I would say that there's been more entrants, and, competitors who have entered that market over

the past five to 10 years than the previous 50.

So it's really important to, to differentiate.

here's one critical way that we differentiate no opinion coverage.

So I think one of the most, Profound decisions that the founders made when

they founded us nine years ago was to not hire opinion writers, not have an opinion

section, not even have an editorial board.

And the impact that that has had is that we are, received by all sides of

the aisle today in a very balanced way.

What that also means is that we create a very, Brand suitable experience for the

brand partners who want to run with us.

there is no impact on our brand partners because of their work with Axios, and

that absolutely matters in Washington.

Okay, but like so.

I get it.

Like, I mean particularly, I think one of the other things actually I probably, I need,

I might need to add a sixth one, which was

kind of like flick the, I think that the early model sort of flicked at that, that

institutions to individual shift and found a, found a place along that continuum, right?

Like it's not, it's not like it's a substack, a rollup of substack.

You think of like puck is further down, the individuals.

You know, Substack is all the way at the end of the, the individuals.

whereas like Axios is somewhere to just from an outsider is somewhere

between institutions and individuals.

There are, there are individuals that, you know, that are, are stars.

I mean, you guys have, have.

Developed, you know, for lack of a, you know, I know like journalists hate the word talent, right?

But like, you know, you've generated like, you know, talent, right?

I mean, I, I, I saw you at the, at the Media Trends live event last week here in New York City.

And, and you know, Sarah, Fisher, in, in this area has done like a tremendous job and, you know.

Sarah would hate me to call her like a beat, an influencer, a beta I influencer.

But, you know, in some ways, yeah, the shoe fits.

Sarah, Sarah Fisher, Dan Primack,

Alex Thompson, Eleanor Hawkins, all of these executives and these reporters are experts.

They're best in class, and so we are building franchises around them.

That's absolutely right.

And what happens is that the, the.

Amount of audience and the, the sort of purity of that audience, that's

ultimately what is driving our business.

Yeah.

So when, when Axios did launch, right, it was, it was mostly, it was very newsletter centric, right?

and it, it was very advertising driven.

now everyone, I, I feel like these days it's about.

It's about being multimodal.

Right?

And while B two I, advertising is a great area.

There's a lot of, there's a lot of people elbowing into that trough.

Like, I mean, it's, it's gotten a lot, it's gotten pretty competitive.

I always wonder if there's gonna be as much spending, because Trump just

seems to make all the decisions.

So I'm not sure who's being influenced.

but.

YY you end up having to diversify these kind of business models.

So let's, let's, let's go with the multimodal, right?

Because you're not primarily in the marketplace saying if you, if you work

with us, you know, you can reach a lot of influential people through email now.

Correct.

That's right.

it's absolutely about being multimodal at the same time.

Organizations, media entities, companies, they are stymied by complexity.

So it absolutely matters which modes you choose, and you have to make sure that you are leaning

into the areas where I heard last week on stage, this comment of where you are permissioned.

For us, at Axios, we say where we can demand to win.

So we wanna make sure that anytime we are bringing something forward to

the marketplace, it's an area where.

We feel really confident about our ability to do something that is distinctive, that is going

to break through, that is going to add value not only to audience and also to our clients.

So when we think about, if we're, to use Sarah Fisher as an example, if we're to

think about how we can bring, opportunity to our clients around her expertise.

It's not only about her newsletter, which is, generating, you know, well over a hundred

thousand subscribers that are currently consuming her every week, but it is also about

how we can stand up best in class live moments.

So our Axios Live franchise has absolutely, exploded over the, the past few years.

We see this marrying between.

Expertise and one-to-one connection, that has driven that business to,

incredible heights, as of today.

So it is about newsletter, it is about live, it is about site.

It is also about, in the Sarah Fisher case, the concept of membership.

Right.

so let's talk about, like, about events as, you know, one of the legs of the stool, right?

So, 'cause I said.

Like, I doubt you're, you're, you're making packages just around like, you

know, ads that run in newsletters and on the site, and on the app, you know, most.

I don't tell me, but I think, you know, most sponsors want integrated packages.

You, you're competing against, you know, a lot of like automated ad systems and,

and so most publishers that I talk to, you know, the reason that they always wanna

talk about events is because events gets you out of that in some way, shape, or form.

Arguably that's why there are too many events because, you know, that's just how it goes.

now Washington.

Has always had a particular type of event.

I feel like, and I don't know if this started with Politico or not,

it's like it's the breakfast event.

Everyone in Washington has breakfast in New York.

They have dinners and in Washington they have breakfast.

I don't know what that says about both places.

Partially because of the ethics rules, but

Oh, is that it?

we could talk about that

Oh, okay.

I didn't, I thought, I thought, I thought nobody drinks down there.

I thought they were early onto the trend.

I mean, I'm going in with breakfast.

I'm having, again, my first breakfast, you know, next month.

So, I, I prefer a breakfast to a dinner personally.

I'll do either,

Well, let me just say this.

are listening, I'll do either.

let, let me just say this, to your offering.

as when we were in Cannes, I can tell the audience that if ever Brian invites you to a dinner,

you say yes.

bring this up.

I ha I, just so everyone knows, I've mentioned this before, I had an

accidental, activation at a club store.

Uh, Jacqueline was nice enough too.

Again, it was a unique experience, right?

I mean,

Sure what memorable.

that's, what we're all after.

blushed.

Yes.

so let, let's talk about the events because like, as I said, wa

Washington's had a particular events.

They're, they're usually smaller scale.

and it, it'll be a view from the top.

There's a euphemism for like a sponsor session, and then, there'll be like, you know, a newsmaker.

they'll be mingling.

And like a lot of lobbyists, I assume, I assume the lobbyists are kind of like the ad tech

salespeople of, of, of the New York sort of world.

And they'll, they'll come and they'll, you know, they'll hub up and, and try to do business.

but like, you know, most people are looking for.

Leverage in an events business.

'cause then all of a sudden you, you know, you can only do so many.

I had Sherry Phillips from Forbes on, and they, they do like hundreds of events a a

year and it's, that can be like a real grind.

I mean, I've been in this events.

Like thing, it's vortex.

It can be get a lot.

How are you thinking about events?

I mean, Semaphore is out there saying they're an events company.

They want to be the next Davos and I mean, I would love to be Davos.

It's a great business.

talk to me about how Axios is approaching events and activations.

so we think of events as a real critical, part of the portfolio because

ultimately Brian, it is the physical manifestation of our newsroom, and it allows

us to build one-to-one connections with the audiences that we're bringing into that room.

And over time, that's gonna become even more difficult for brands

to connect with those audiences.

That's the reason why we see us as remaining a core value, and partner to our brands.

When we think of events, we wanna make sure that we are.

Breaking news that we have something very unique to say that there is, a unique value that you

are getting out of coming to one of our events.

and because of what we've been able to do over time, when we, convene audiences, we're

convening the most important individuals, not only in room, but also on stage.

So.

Just last week, in Washington DC we hosted the Axios AI Plus Summit and that program

delved into, what matters in ai, especially when it comes to the way in which some of

these companies maybe, how they're going to be impacted by potential regulation or policy.

And on that stage, we had the CEO of Anthropic speaking.

That's what breaks through.

That's what matters.

So how can we break news and tell incredible stories while, in person with the audience and

ultimately in partnership with these brands who also have to communicate to these audiences?

You know, I think.

In this space, it's a lot less about advertising and it's a lot more about informing and

educating these audiences and live we've proven, has been a great way for, for our

brand partners to do that.

But what is the business model then for like, let's just stick on, on this

event, or we can, we can also go into the, the one, the, the media trends live, because

I think they're, they're different, right?

Like that one, the, the one like last week the media trends live that I went to.

See more about me about driving membership.

you know, there was some sponsorship, but, you know, having, you know, having come out of a

B2B like events business, I was like, oh my God.

Like there's like 50 logos that would be up here.

If this event had been done at dig day, it would be like the entire

lu escape would be like on a slide.

so very tastefully done.

Appreciate that.

you.

very, very core to business is just making sure that the partners that we do work with

ultimately can break through to tell their story.

That's, we've learned that, over the time that this isn't going to be a. About logo

soup to your point, this is very much about providing opportunity for clients to

give voice to their story, give voice to their business so that ultimately they can

do more business or do better business.

Yeah, but like, so give me the AI event.

Like what is the business model for that kind of event?

Yeah.

so it is, multi-pronged.

we have the ability to sell against advertising.

So we're talking about, a figure that is, you know, seven figure, seven

figures, of advertising revenue that is driven against, one day of programming.

And that is, underwritten by core sponsors who ultimately do get the

time on the stage that they're looking for, as well as activations around.

We also host, dinners and breakfasts, that surrounded, that are essentially

expert voice round tables.

So how do we convene a group of 20 to 25 of the most?

Influential individuals on a particular topic and moderate a conversation that can

move the needle, on that particular topic.

so it is very much advertising based, what we've tried and, media trends showcase this.

We also have experimented with ticketing.

So ticketing has become a part of a number of our programs, and I see that as being an opportunity

that we lean further into in the future as well.

leveraging our, events as to your point, an upper funnel mechanism for driving

membership, professional memberships that we've been creating around, key, reporters

like Sarah and like Eleanor Hawkins.

But you're not like ta like, so I think that the, the sort of sebet seems to

be on like the, like a massive like event.

Like, I mean, I think when you get into events you start to realize like the,

the, and, and the margins sound great.

If you're selling seven figures of like, sponsorships, like the, those

margins will, will work, right?

but it's

High value, high margin.

Ultimately, like that's my goal as their, this

is a CRO of XiO os.

yeah, yeah.

But it's like, you know, there's a lot of leverage in making a lot of money at once versus like

an alright amount of money, like many times.

is this like a build to that?

Because, you know, I mean, I think when you start to get into one day.

Events, like, you know, you start to get, like it's, it becomes, the calendar

becomes pin the tail on the donkey.

Pretty soon you're in the Forbes category and you're doing hundreds and that's fine.

That's just a different type of business and there is some risk to that.

I mean, there's a risk of dilution and there's also just a risk like internally of just

becoming on this events treadmill, that that can really, you know, SAP an organization.

Yeah, 100%.

So the, the goal here and the strategy is not more, for more, it is not

about having hundreds of programs.

That's just not in our calculus.

what we are doing though is experimenting constantly so that we do build toward.

Moments where the impact is so great, similar to what we've been able to

accomplish with, the AI plus DC Summit.

So if you look, or if I look at the revenue implication year over year, it's always

building toward that ultimate goal of having one critical moment in Washington that matters

around ai and that everybody is going to pay attention, not only brand partners, but also.

Audience members.

Also the individuals who are going to agree for these one-on-one interviews

on the stage with our reporters.

Yeah.

And so for that AI event, like, is, is that invitation only or application?

Because I think one of the essential tensions of events that I, I end up seeing when, 'cause

look, look, a lot of people are coming to this area and, you know, I spent a lot of time doing,

you know, in this and there was always a tension.

You wanna sell tickets, right?

But the, the, the people who will buy the tickets, like.

If, you know, in, in the sort of media world will be like a lot of,

you know, ad tech salespeople, right?

And you're trying to sell a, a, a different audience a lot of times.

So in order to curate the right audience, you know, you want to have control over it, right?

And so I, I sometimes think those things are in intent, are intention because you

and media is about managing tensions.

Let's be real, but.

Because you're, you're selling a brand like Axios and a brand is about, and to me the

tangible expression of, of, of it in media now is being able to get the right people in a room.

Yeah.

And so, completely agree.

And the way in which we've operated is that we actually will open up, the

page so you can apply, to register.

And, then we go ahead and we start curating that list.

And what's interesting is that 458 individuals, were registered, In the room

for our Axios, uh, a plus summit in dc and of those it was 50% that had a title

director above, like that is absolutely core.

So making sure that that audience is going to carry the story that they're going

to hear, on the stage, that's absolutely critical to the success of the business.

Yeah.

And do you end up like packaging that with, with like media,

Sure.

you know, you wanna make sure that there's an anchor to

every program, but what I think is most important, and I said this earlier.

It's less about advertising and is much more about what is the client in the public affairs

space ultimately facing as their challenge.

Is this a crisis comms moment?

Is this a moment where they, recognize that reeducation has to take place?

If that's the case, what are the many modes by which they can educate the audience?

Oftentimes, live is an anchor to a larger package.

Right.

and so let's talk about a little bit about the public affairs space.

'cause it seems like you're very bullish on it, like as far as its, its growth and

like, look, the, I I lived in Washington very briefly in like the late nineties.

And like revisiting it can just, it just shows like how big the government has grown because

I was like, oh, I remember those houses.

There were like.

$200,000 in 1999 and now they're $2 million.

And just the, the, the growth.

No matter what your political persuasion is, the growth of the government has been

astounding and therefore the stakes are high.

There was a reason that the big, beautiful bill was called big because it was massive.

And you know, so companies are, are economic animals and they act accordingly to, in order to

influence what goes into any bit of legislation or any, regulation is just so massive right now.

Correct Brian and, and know that, that policy and that regulation, it is

ultimately influencing the conditions in which these companies and industries will operate

of all roads, lead to and through Washington.

And that's never been more true than it is today.

Yeah.

I mean, and, and particularly as again, right or wrong, the government and business

are more entwined than they've been.

Right?

At least in my, in my lifetime at least, I wasn't paying attention when I was like 12.

But I think, at least not to that I was paying attention to like.

Phillies games and stuff.

But, you know, I think that, I think AI is part of the story, right?

Because like for most of media, you know, I, it's like I go to, like last week

before, the Axios, the day before, or no, two days before I'd been at this wired.

AI Power Summit, in world Trade, right next to where you guys had, your event.

And you know, it's a lot of doom and gloom when it comes to like publishing an ai.

Now, if you're Axios or one of its ilk.

This is actually a pretty good time if anyone is motivated to influence

regulators and has the, the capacity.

It's people who are paying a hundred million dollars for an engineer, regulation and,

and, and AI is an existential thing now.

I mean, obviously with, with where.

Washington is right now, it's, it's very, it's very much, you know,

it's one party control, right?

So I don't think that there's like a massive risk that, that there's gonna be

regulation that stops the development of ai.

I mean, there's this, I. Book out now.

And then we saw like Eliezer Koski and Nate Suarez about, you know, if

they build it, everyone will die.

which I like, you know, it's a very direct title.

and,

a high P Doom

Yeah, very high feed do.

And they, you know, they're basically like, oh, we have to shut this down.

You know, we have to, you know, launch missile strikes against data centers and all this

like, kind of like pie in the sky stuff that is born out of like fever swamps in Berkeley.

that's just, it just doesn't match up with the reality of power, these

days, particularly in Washington.

So, explain how this, am I right?

Like this?

This has gotta be a nice boon to that business.

I think that anytime where there is potential for policy and regulation,

we see those industries activate by way of messaging and, and advertising.

So.

You could take the man out of dc but clearly you remember the way that it works from the nineties.

Indeed, those companies are, evaluating different ways in which they can communicate

to the individuals and the teams that are going to make these decisions.

100%. and then when it comes to AI, generally, there is a lot of discussion about.

Doom and gloom.

But for us at Axios, I do think that we sit at a place where we see a lot of opportunity,

and I think we're incredibly bullish when it comes to the impact that AI can have on,

on our company in a really positive way.

Yeah.

Well, I mean the, again, the near term is just as a revenue generator.

I don't know if you have like a figure that you would share about how much, like of.

Ad revenue is related to AI companies, but I'm sure, I'm sure it is like plus

600% or something from two years ago.

Like this is, you know, the amount of money going into this area is such a massive bet.

And particularly the technology industry.

You talk about the nineties, like techno tech, the tech industry had ignored Washington for a

long time until they tried to break up Microsoft and then the tech industry was like, oh God,

I don't think Google had anyone in Washington until like, you know, the like 2005 or so.

I, I have no idea how many people Google has

Yeah, the office now is quite

Yeah, it's probably

like.

what I, I do think is important, and what I can share is that when I look

at the categories of business that are operating with us today, and it's, it's

been the truth since the very beginning.

the top two industries are technology and financial services, and I

can't give you exact figures, but I

the economy.

That is the economy, and I think that that will, absolutely continue

being the case moving forward too.

Yeah.

so let's talk about multimodal, right?

Because I mean, to me, like Axios, and this is, this is a little bit related to ai, right?

Like, because the smart brevity format was, obviously pioneered, trademarked even by, by

It's a great book.

If you haven't read, read it.

I don't know if I have, it's, I'm sure it's a quick read.

and, You know, I think again, with the ai, it's sort of like, you know, when you, when

you go, when you're, when I'm using chat GBT, I'm like, oh, this is like kind of, it's

answering in the axio and smart brevity format.

obviously AI is really good at that kind of, summarization and, you know, being

very ec economical with, with its words.

you know, I think one of the things, this is maybe more on the editorial side, like that, you know.

I always wondered, like for, for writers, if that was like a straight jacket of

being, all their stuff being, almost boiled down into a commodity commodity format.

In some ways, I understand it from the reader perspective, but from a self-interested,

career-oriented journalist perspective, I think there, there, there are trade offs to that.

But like I, I

think

you

If I, if I may, one of the things that absolutely is true is that in a

world of AI, content will be commoditized.

News once published will be commoditized, but what AI will never do is break news.

So AI will never be the sourced, like, like B Source, like the human experts in

Sarah Fisher or Dan or Eleanor or Ena.

that just won't be the case.

And so that's, that's where we see the real opportunity as we navigate

what is building in this industry.

Right.

But I think now, look, I, I was listening to, to Meredith, levion, like on the

girl room, I think it was last week.

and there's again, I I, nobody thinks text is going away.

I mean, that's, that's crazy, but it's a straw man thing to say like, oh, text is not going away.

It's like, well, okay, fine.

Like agreed cursive writing has also not gone away.

at the same time, cursive writing is soon to be only known by like tattoo artists.

You know, when obviously the trends are moving towards, more audio, more video.

Again, this is the multimodal question.

Axios was really good at smart brevity and text.

you guys went into podcasting

And we

short podcasting.

That didn't, I don't think that totally worked.

I think we moved away from it.

it.

didn't, and it's actually something that we, we, talk about in the sense that if it

doesn't work, we're comfortable moving away from something if we find that it's not

adding value in the way that we want it to.

So it was a very important experiment, certainly.

Weirdly audio has gone in a totally different, whatever the opposite of smart

brevity is, is whatever Joe Rogan does.

I think, and, I don't mind Joe Rogan, I don't listen to it regularly, but, every

now and again, but let's talk about video.

'cause you guys did this, this HBO show that I liked.

it was, it was a high-end show, didn't continue it.

and meanwhile, YouTube is the new TV.

And so you're, you're going back.

I've never really associated Axios with, with video much over the years.

tell me about the video strategy now.

Yeah.

So one of the things that, we have been thinking about is how, how

can we add value in that space and.

One of the things that I think about as a revenue leader is how can I look at the, extraordinary

work that's coming out of the newsroom, the work that they're doing every day, and match

it with, the right demand and partners who would be interested in experimenting with us.

And that's ultimately the way that the Axio show this season came together.

So.

We knew that we wanted to be there.

We knew that we could add value.

Ultimately, we ran a, we won an Emmy the first time that we, had the Axio show a few years ago.

So we know what we're doing in this space.

we found it to be the right time for us to reengage with video and thusly.

The audience has responded.

So we've seen really incredible numbers when it comes to reaching core audience profiles.

We, we target five here.

Their core, audience profiles are ultimately watching the show in a way that, really, exceeded

even my expectation by way of total numbers.

What are the audience profiles by the way?

Yeah, the, there are five critical profiles that we think about at Axios.

and I, I love it.

I love the, clarity and vision, so if I don't mention them, it's not for us.

I would love to refer our clients elsewhere.

but the five audience profiles are influencers.

We've talked about those and we reach tho them at scale and we reach both sides of

the aisle, which we think is absolutely critical to our success in the future.

C-suites and C-suite minus ones, we reach deal makers, and investors.

That's an absolutely critical part of our, Of our work when it comes to the business suite

that we bring to the table, media and communicators.

A rising economic buyer we identified a few years ago was the chief communication officer.

They're so critical, not only for the way that brands operate, but also the way that

brands are now leaning into advertising.

And then the fifth is the smart professional across the local ecosystem that we've established.

So those are the five profiles that we, we lean into when we're talking to our clients.

That's really interesting because like tech isn't on that list though.

I mean, I guess they're like sort of CEOs, but like if I think about, I mean this

is always like with, not to like go on a tangent about puck, but like I always say

that, I was like, how are you about power?

You're not like that big into like tech and like tech is like, we are all downstream of tech.

Like if you're about power, maybe it should just be about tech.

Because, yeah, I mean, Washington is the ultimate power, but outside of that,

it's like Washington and Tech really.

I think it could be like the two of them,

when we look at isolating different subsets of, of audiences, we find a lot of

the tech leaders are consuming our content.

It's just not in a direct, direct capacity.

Right.

But they are reading XiO Am they are reading AI Plus, which is our,

coverage on ai, written by Ina.

That is ultimately what they're consuming.

Yeah, and I think that audience profile approach is, is super smart and I

think it probably, that's like having email at the heart probably helps that quite a bit.

I mean.

Meredith, like made a mention of like comScore, not being about

comScore, and I was like, oh my God.

Those were the days.

and I feel like obviously we've all moved, everyone has moved on.

Most people have moved on from, you know, talking about their uniques, and.

Being able to boil down specific segments like that is, again, it's like kind of

boring in some ways, but it's absolutely critical in this kind of of media ecosystem.

Absolutely.

And, you mentioned it again in, in your piece, uh, earlier today, that is so

critical to the way in which we're, we're ultimately making money here too.

Right.

So let's talk about subs.

You know, when, when Axios launched, Jim talked about like a $10,000 a year

subscription, which I thought sounded fantastic.

it's one that, it's one that I, I would love that didn't come to pass.

I guess it kind of came to pass with, with what became Axios hq.

You guys went into, into SaaS.

That's been like, that's been split off.

and you know, subscriptions are one of those things that people always talk about, like

at launch, like Semaphore for instance, they talked about like subscriptions.

I haven't, I haven't seen that.

and.

It's, it's a long road, you know, to, to making subscriptions work.

I mean, all power to the New York Times.

but, you know, most media companies are, are not going to be, mostly subscriptions.

And you look at the New York Times and they're just, they're using that in order

to build like a far larger, business.

What is the sort of subscription strategy now for Axios?

The recurring revenue stream that we lean into is membership.

So, we have Axios Pro Deals, which is a B2B subscription service.

So that is in depth, coverage of the most important deals in the space.

and that is a multi-thousand dollars subscription, but it is very, B2B and is very specific.

Again, we demand to win in that space.

So it is also very successful.

when it comes to the larger concept of subscription and news.

Where we've leaned in, has been in this membership space around specific reporters, and those

would be Sarah Fischer and Eleanor Hawkins.

Sarah writes for.

The CEOs of media entities, chief marketing officers, and Eleanor Hawkins is a star

amongst, chief communication officers.

So.

Th through membership.

we are standing up, you know, value for the professional class surrounding, each reporter.

They're creating special deep dives, similarly to the way that you do.

they are hosting very specific event opportunities so that they can connect the

members and create a network, between, members.

Really looking to just add value and make those professionals smarter, faster, and

with the ability to do their business better.

Yeah, and it's interesting, you, you say membership not subscription.

And I think, you know, member, sometimes they're used interchangeably.

to me the, if it's beyond like pay walling content and it involves.

Some kind of congregation element.

I think membership make.

I, I mean some, it's kind of semantics, but there is a difference.

Like the Wall

I think it

about membership and I'm like, it's a subscription.

I think, subscription to me speaks to something that is more

transactional.

Membership speaks to something where you are engaged and you're potentially

adding value in the same way that you're extracting value from the experience.

Right.

So why, why you, you build it around kind of individuals, which

I think is, is kind of interesting.

I mean, the, let's leave aside the deals, right?

The deals is a specialized, you know, really high end, maybe it's not membership, right?

but when you talk about that, like why not just like an Xi like.

Like puck.

It's like you get everything.

It's like you don't only get Dylan, but you also get all of these other, whatever

sort of adjective John will use, for how amazing the others, everyone is there.

why not just have an Axios?

'cause that's clean.

it is clean, but it, it is also something that, we've talked about in the

past, but what we have identified, and at least till now we have identified that what makes

most sense for our business is to ensure that.

we remain a free, newsletter and if we want for the recurring, we lean into

those very specific, profiles that we think will, will convert into members.

But maintaining the, the free component of the vast majority of our content

is still absolutely important to the way that we think about our business.

Right.

So I mean, the, the, I guess what I see doing is like creating a different, like,

quote unquote class of content, right?

It's like, you know, I would say it's insights.

There's news and then there's insights, right?

Like, and insights to me is.

Is something involving, involving data or like in-depth analysis that

helps people do their jobs better.

It is not this happened or we found out this scoops are great.

You know that at the same time, you don't build a membership on that.

You can build a subscription on that.

Uh, but you don't build a, I don't think, a membership on, on, on, on scoops.

it's interesting because like, I, I always wonder if about the ability to flex across into insights

any user like audience survey I've ever run.

Everyone has always said that they want research.

and then you put it in front of them and they're like, oh yeah, we already get

research from people who, that's all they do.

What you do is totally different and we like what you do.

And I'm like, but you told me this other thing, which is just how people operate.

When they are given surveys, how do I know this is like, you know, maybe more on the pro, but like,

how do you end up thinking about, about that?

Because you guys are, and again, it goes back to the multimodal thing.

It's like you can be really good at what you do, but you have to, you have to like master other

skills and it is a kind of other skill to me.

It is and also it smart brevity lends itself.

To helping us distill the information in a way that is easily accessible for these members.

So I think that makes, that, that adds distinction to the overall promise that we're making.

So, for example, you know, some, anyone can gain access to, let's say,

publicly, traded information about.

a, a decision that, that Google has made, but ultimately.

Sarah going in depth and underscoring it and presenting her analysis through

the lens of smart brevity is just going to make the member smarter faster.

They, their, the work has been removed from them.

and it has been done for them.

And I think that's, that's part of the

promise, and I think that's one of the reasons why that membership has just continued to grow.

Sarah's membership, Eleanor's is over a year old.

Sarah's, launched, not long ago.

And the numbers that we're seeing, especially off of the, larger newsletters that each of them have.

It's, it's significant and it's great business, and I think it's

very promising for, what comes next.

Right.

So last topic is, is about local, right?

So, I mean, Axios got into local.

When I first saw the, the, that you guys were getting local, I think it was 2021.

I was like, Ooh, man, it's truly Zer Pierre.

People are making weird decisions.

They're buying, you know, eight.

JPEGs, and the crypto land and Axios is getting into local, obviously it is subsequent

to that, Axios was purchased by by Cox, uh, which is a lot of local media assets.

Gimme the business case.

I know, I know.

The, the, you know, the news desert and I know all about how local is the hardest of the

hard problems and that there is and should be.

A mission component to, to just about every, news company.

But I just want to zero in on give me the business case for getting into local.

100%.

And it does feel good as somebody who's long supported news organizations Politico in the New

York Times and Axios, it does feel very good to, to be able to impact, the local news ecosystem.

But more importantly for me, when I think about the business, it is about providing, our clients

the ability to reach local, smart professionals in a way that makes sense for their business.

And what we're doing is actually transacting with a number of, industries.

And types of clients.

So I have a local sales team that is selling across the full, 34 market ecosystem today,

and they're selling to regional banks.

Some of them are even selling local for local clients.

So Lowe's is a client, that is a local client spending across the local ecosystem.

Where there is incredible opportunity as well is with our national brands who have

important public affairs stories to tell, and now they can tell them at the local

level, personalized for those local, policy makers, those local small business owners.

And that has been from an advertising perspective, that has been incredibly promising.

The growth trajectory for this business is.

Tremendous.

So year over year, both of those teams deliver an outsized, increase in, uh, the

total revenue that they're bringing into the organization, across the local ecosystem.

And when you think about it, Brian, there are very few.

organizations today that can reach smart professionals across local at scale.

And so we're now able to deliver that not only for regional and local clients, but

also for those national brands like a Meta, like a Walmart, who are telling economic

impact stories in the city of Atlanta.

Yeah, so you're localizing national advertising.

You, you don't have feet on the street as they say.

You know, calling on the pizza parlor on the local car dealership.

You're not getting into the that business.

that, that, that ultimately is, is not where I see the more immediate opportunity,

where I see it as truly in regional and national, brands looking to, to reach this audience.

Yeah, and I think the question ends up coming down, you know, I talk with a

lot of people on the local level who are, you know, they're competing, I guess.

I mean, they, they kind of go back and forth about whether they're competing with Axios or not.

I mean, they, a lot of times, and who knows, they could be positioning it to me.

That happens sometimes Jacqueline, believe it or not.

but they, you know, they see what, so they're like, well, you know, Axios

is going after, you know, national.

They're not doing like the local hospital chain.

I'm like, well, they might be a regional hospital chain and, and that that

could impede on, on your business.

but it does sound like.

It's a slightly different approach, and I wonder how robust of an operation that can

support, you know, I think that they, you, you can definitely make the numbers work, you know,

with, with localizing national advertising.

But you know, the reality of local is it's tough.

It's tough for anyone.

It is tough.

It's also promising when we track the audience that we've been able to generate and pull into.

the flywheel, it is incredibly promising and I do believe that this is an opportunity for us to

do something very different at the local level.

It'll be foundationally supported by some of those national brands.

It will continue to grow with effort around regional brands.

And then who knows what happens at the local, for local level in the future.

Yeah.

So you, is most of the advertising on that you end up running on the local level from existing

clients who are doing say, CSR work for you or, or is this broadening your base of clients primarily?

Obviously, it's gonna be a mix, right?

It is a mix.

It is a mix.

As of today, it is, it is more about new logos that we've brought

into the the Axios family because of this local footprint.

Okay, cool.

All right.

Final thing is, you know, what, for the balance of the year, what are, let's say three things

that you are, are very optimistic about.

I hear a lot of pessimism, so I'm, I'm, I, you know, I wanna do, I wanna do optimism.

I, I like it.

I am incredibly bullish on the impact that AI is going to have specifically for.

my business team, so my revenue team, I want my, I want every human to become super human,

and I'm incredibly bullish on the opportunity that we have in front of us to do just that.

I am really bullish about.

Where, Washington and official, public affairs messaging is going.

I think there's lots of opportunity there.

And of course, with regard to the two critical products that are growing the fastest at Axios, it

is all about live, and it is also all about local.

Those two areas are just up into the right.

Yeah, just one bonus question on that.

'cause you mentioned it, like how are you using tangible, gimme a tangible use case for AI within.

You are within the revenue organization?

Like we keep hearing about ai.

No, we're not gonna use AI to write Star.

I'm like, yes.

Okay.

We, we've heard, we've heard it a lot, but like obviously the biggest opportunities are in

things outside of the core journalism product.

I think people pretend that the cost centers.

In these publishers are in the people who are typing out words or are making content.

It's, it's, there's so much more that goes into a publishing company than

that, to a publisher than than that.

And, there are a lot of efficiencies to be gained, I think on, you know, as someone who is now in, in

sales, there's a lot of efficiencies to be gained.

There sure are.

So let me give you two quick ones.

we established two years ago, a division within the organization called Axios Intelligence.

And what we think about is that we're sitting on a top of a. A pile of, priceless information when it

comes to how these critical profiles that I talked about, how they're consuming editorial content.

So just what, what are they engaging with generally, I now have the ability to understand

that and, create much more performative recommendations for our clients through the

use of AI within our Axios intelligence team.

So immediately matching up.

What is their, their need state and what do we know about that audience

when it comes to their consumption?

that is really helpful.

Not only is it helpful, Brian, when it comes to, making better advertising

recommendations, but it's also really helpful when we're talking about public affairs.

It's also really helpful in making recommendations on communication style, agnostic of Axios.

So lean more into.

This specific kind of AI tool, versus this one lean more into, you know, the,

the concept of, PBRs if necessary, like that ultimately is, is something that

is unlocked that we didn't have before.

And then from a very tactical.

perspective we now have created, I wish I had this when I was a individual contributor.

We've created a, a custom GPT within the organization where I can match not only the

list of an executive, but their list, the activity against that list, and also what

is currently happening in the news today.

And create a hit list for a sales executive to prioritize their morning on who they should

be going after, based upon who's in their list, who is active, and also whether or

not the client is in the news that is taking hours of prep work away and they're able

to to run faster.

So does that, so you superpower the salespeople, right?

Like, I mean it's like in some ways it's the flip side.

I always think there's more similarities between like sales and reporting than either side.

You've talked about this before?

Yes, indeed.

Absolutely.

But yeah, we've, it's, it's super powering them to do their job faster and it's removing as much

rote work as possible, not only for the frontline sales team, but for the entire revenue division.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for taking all this time.

This was

Thank you so much.

This was so great, Brian.

Appreciate you.