May 8, 2026

For years, communications success meant earning media coverage. Now, as more people turn to AI instead of traditional search for answers, it means earning citations. What your organization publishes determines whether you’re part of the answer or left out of the conversation.

ICYMI: Our most recent edition explored how events are becoming one of the most powerful venues for influence in 2026 and featured a Q&A with Diane Brady, Executive Editorial Director at Fortune. Brady previewed the Fortune 500 Innovation Forum, taking place November 16-17 in Detroit. Read it here.

From coverage to citation

The corporate newsroom is having a moment. Owned content has sometimes been a secondary asset — useful for SEO and sales enablement, but ultimately less valuable than an earned placement in the right outlet. That calculus is changing.

As fewer people read the news and more query AI, the role of thought leadership is shifting. Companies should stop treating content as bait for media placement and start treating it as authoritative input into how systems and decision-makers form answers.

The old model optimized for awareness and coverage. The new standard is citation: by people, advisors, AI systems and the internal leaders who shape strategy.

A conversation with Noah Greenberg, CEO of Stacker, about what it takes to become a reference source in the age of AI

In this COMPASS Q&A, we spoke with Noah Greenberg, CEO of Stacker, an earned syndication platform that connects media outlets with original research and insights from third-party organizations. He shared his thoughts on what it takes to build content that earns lasting reference value in an AI-mediated world.

The following has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Q: What’s the fastest way for a piece of content to become irrelevant?

GREENBERG: Publish a figure for March and never update it for April or May. [LLMs] are really smart and that’s not going to stick. As soon as a piece of content is no longer seen as fresh, LLMs are pretty good at removing it from answers.

Q: Do you have data on this?

GREENBERG: We analyzed this at Stacker and found that content syndicated to local news outlets had roughly twice the citation half-life of content published elsewhere. That speaks more to the type of site than the type of content, but the freshness principle holds across the board.

Q: So what does it actually take to become a reference source, not just a publisher?

GREENBERG: You need to be putting out unique data or subject matter expertise that only you can provide. Indeed and Glassdoor can show how job growth is shifting based on their own data. Lyft can tell stories about where people are commuting. Instacart can tell you the most popular groceries in every state.

Q: What if you don’t have proprietary data?

GREENBERG: Take public datasets like CDC health statistics or walkability scores and do your own analysis. If you show your methodology and do it well, that’s the kind of content that earns citations. It reminds me of early SEO, when someone would complain they weren’t showing up first on Google, and you’d pull up their page and say: You don’t deserve to show up first. Look who is. They have the best piece of content. Yours is twentieth at best.

Q: How does that change who the most important comms or marketing people are?

GREENBERG: One thing that’s really stuck with me is that the most valuable role in the age of GEO might be the product marketer, someone who understands what makes your product unique, what people are searching for and how to connect those two things. That’s increasingly going to be the brand newsroom’s job.

Q: If a company wanted to increase its chances of being cited tomorrow, what’s the most practical advice you’d give?

GREENBERG: Two things: First, make sure the data in your content changes over time. Ten years ago, you could publish a generic buying guide and it would perform. That doesn’t work anymore. LLMs aren’t looking to cite things when the answer is the same today as it is next year. Second, get that content republished. If you syndicate a strong piece across hundreds of sites, you dramatically increase the surface area for it to be cited.

Q: Are there any companies whose newsroom strategies you particularly admire?

GREENBERG: HubSpot, with what they’ve done through The Hustle and their YouTube acquisitions, is educating entrepreneurs and business builders better than most traditional media. Hone Health’s blog, The Edge, has done a fantastic job of owning a content space that Men’s Fitness or Women’s Health would have occupied a decade ago. And GoodRx stands out. They’ve hired doctors and economists and they’re putting out content that only they can tell. They’re getting significant GEO citations as a result.

The bottom line

• Treat freshness as a feature. Static content fades. Build processes to update core content regularly.
• Invest in original, proprietary content. If your content could have been written by anyone, it won’t be attributed to your organization.
• Think like a product marketer. The question is no longer “What’s the story?” Instead, it’s “What makes our perspective uniquely ours?”
• Distribution amplifies authority. Getting content republished across authoritative outlets increases its surface area for citation.

How we can help

Contact us to discuss ways to build newsroom strategies for your organization that earn reference value. From content audits to editorial frameworks to thought leadership positioning, we help you show up where it matters most.

Join Noah and the Stacker team at Cited 2026, their inaugural gathering for senior marketing, content and communications leaders — taking place June 10 in New York City. The single-day event brings together practitioners from HubSpot, Tripadvisor, Salesforce, The Points Guy and more to explore how great content drives measurable business results in the age of AI. Request your spot here.

Key upcoming events

Talent + Workforce

• Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit (Atlanta, May 19-20) Join senior executives, CHROs, technologists and culture leaders to examine how AI, demographic shifts and evolving employee expectations are reshaping the future of work, with Indeed serving as the event’s Founding and Data Partner. Speakers include Dr. Bernice A. King, CEO of The King Center; Hannah Pritchett, Chief People Officer of Anthropic; and John Santora, CEO of WeWork.
• Fortune COO Summit (Scottsdale, June 1-2) Fortune’s editors and top COOs from around the world will explore the strategies shaping the next generation of enterprise execution, from building shock-proof supply chains and human-AI workforces to harnessing agentic AI to reimagine workflows and operating models. Speakers include Venkatesh Alagirisamy, EVP and COO of Nike; Ayesha Molino, COO of MGM Resorts International; and Janelle Sallenave, COO of Chime.

AI + Enterprise Execution

• Axios AI+NYC (New York City, June 3) Expect exclusive conversations with top innovators and visionaries on the next wave of AI transformation and its impact on business and the world. Speakers include Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM; Ariel Ekblaw, CEO of Aurelia Institute; and Jim Lanzone, CEO of Yahoo.
• Bloomberg Tech (San Francisco, June 3-4) Led by the outlet’s Emily Chang and Tom Giles, this summit brings together leading CEOs, investors and innovators harnessing technology to change the world — covering everything from industrial robots and consumer electronics to data center buildout and the race to artificial general intelligence. Speakers include Daniela Amodei, president and co-founder of Anthropic; Fei-Fei Li, CEO of World Labs; and Alexandr Wang, chief AI officer of Meta. Contact us to meet up on site!
• Fortune Brainstorm Tech (Aspen, June 8-10) Returning for its 25th anniversary, this cross-disciplinary summit brings together the CEOs, investors and innovators tackling the most urgent challenges spanning industries and geographies — debating big questions and defining what comes next as global alliances shift, industries face upheaval, and intelligent technology advances at a breakneck pace. Speakers include Boris Cherny, head of Claude Code at Anthropic; Meg Whitman, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard; and Andrew Yang, CEO of Noble Mobile.
  

Health

• Financial Times US Pharma and Biotech Summit (New York City, May 14) Amid mounting policy, regulatory, and investment uncertainty, participants will explore how the U.S. biopharmaceutical industry can sustain innovation and accelerate the path from breakthrough science to patient access. Speakers include Fiona Marshall, president of biomedical research at Novartis; Jane Grogan, executive vice president and head of research at Biogen; and Greg Meyers, executive vice president and chief digital and technology officer at Bristol Myers Squibb.
• World Health Assembly (Geneva, Switzerland, May 18-23) The 79th World Health Assembly brings together delegates from WHO member states to review global health policies, agendas, and budgets for the upcoming year.
• STAT Summit West (San Francisco, May 19) As advances in AI, biotech and health tech generate unprecedented volumes of biological data, industry leaders will explore how new technologies are reshaping drug discovery and the economics of bringing treatments to market. Speakers include Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe; Neil Kumar, CEO of BridgeBio Pharma; and Ted W. Love, former chair of Biotechnology Innovation Organization and former CEO of Global Blood Therapeutics.
• Reuters Digital Health (Chicago, May 21-22) As AI becomes embedded in care and health systems race to modernize, join healthcare decision-makers to explore how to turn digital innovation into real-world impact — advancing adoption, strengthening infrastructure, and improving patient access and outcomes. Speakers include Natalie Davis, CEO of United States of Care; Maggie Helms, senior vice president and chief digital and AI officer at Intermountain Health; and Karthik Raja, senior vice president and chief analytics and AI officer at the Ascension Data Science Institute.

Bookmark Global Gateway Advisors’ event tracker, updated weekly.

Media news

• Inside the minds of independent media. Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie and Head of New Media Hanne Winarsky are launching “Open Tab,” a new interview series where they’ll sit down with an independent media founder each week at a favorite local spot to discuss what it really takes to build a sustainable media business. Episode one premieres today.
• Silicon Valley & The World. Following the success of its World Economy Summit, Semafor announced a new annual convening bringing together top AI founders, senior government officials and global decision-makers — with an advisory board that includes Satya Nadella, Jensen Huang and Ruth Porat — in November 2026.
• The Ankler is splitting with Substack. The entertainment industry-focused publication — one of the platform’s largest, with 150,000 paid subscribers — is moving to its own in-house technology infrastructure, with subscriptions now handled by Passport, a new paywall provider operated by Automattic, the company behind WordPress, and media analyst Ben Thompson. Substack currently takes 10% of publisher subscriptions sales.
• Business Insider is getting into the shopping guide business. “Valued,” will be in the form of a weekly newsletter, with “practical product picks, smart shopping advice and the inside scoop on sales.” Basically its own play on The New York Times’ Wirecutter and a bid for affiliate link revenue.
• James Murdoch eyes Vox. His company, Lupa Systems, is in talks to acquire parts of Vox Media, the controlling company of New York Magazine and a sprawling podcast network that generated more than $80 million last year with hosts like Scott Galloway and Brené Brown. The purchase would give Murdoch a foothold in the U.S. media landscape alongside his father and brother, whose trust includes Fox News and The Wall Street Journal.
• Axios released its Q1 2026 Media Platforms Insights Report. Read the full report here (paywalled). Key themes this quarter:
  • Platforms are doubling down on feed control and bot detection as AI-generated content erodes user trust.
  • Creator platforms like Substack, Beehiiv and Patreon are converging into full-stack publishing tools.
  • AI companies — led by OpenAI — are moving aggressively into advertising as infrastructure costs demand new revenue.
  • Meta is on track to surpass Google in global ad revenue for the first time.
  • The line between Hollywood and social media continues to blur, with Netflix, Disney+ and YouTube all racing toward vertical video.

Media moves

• Shashank Joshi was named Washington bureau chief for The Economist.
• New York Magazine hired Michael Calderone (previously The Wrap) as deputy editor of its Intelligencer vertical.
• Rachel Siegel (formerly The Washington Post) was hired by CNN as a business reporter.
• The Wall Street Journal hired Kara Voght (formerly The Washington Post) as a features reporter covering politics, power and culture. Meanwhile, Sebastian Herrera, who covered tech, has left the outlet.
• Edmund Lee (formerly The New York Times) was hired by Reuters as media editor.
• TechCrunch reporter Becca Szkutak has left for a role at the Association for Advancing Automation.
• Prashant Rao was promoted to global managing editor at Semafor.
• WIRED hired Brian Kahn (formerly Bloomberg) and Sophie Kleeman (formerly Business Insider) as senior editor on the science desk and senior editor on the business desk, respectively.
• Courtney Connley-Hampton (formerly CNBC) was hired by Forbes to cover careers.
• AP News technology and business reporter Michael Liedtke and media reporter David Bauder both accepted buyouts after several decades with the outlet.
• Phoebe Liu (formerly Forbes) is joining The Information to lead its coverage of Nvidia.
• Morning Brew hired Jamila Huxtable (formerly NPR) as a reporter for its new Founder Brew newsletter.
• Business and technology reporter Shannon Carroll shared that she was laid off by Quartz.

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