Exclusive: Viafoura's Mark Zohar on the future of media engagement

The media industry is undergoing a profound transformation as publishers seek new ways to engage audiences directly, moving away from traditional reliance on ads and search engines.

For years, digital media relied heavily on referrals from Google, Facebook, and YouTube to drive audience growth. Advertising revenue often followed, but this approach had limitations. Google's AI-driven summaries now deprioritise publisher content, while Facebook and other platforms have scaled back news referrals, leaving many outlets scrambling to reach their readers.

According to Mark Zohar, President and CEO of Toronto-based digital experience company Viafoura, publishers are increasingly focused on building high-value relationships with their readers rather than chasing raw traffic.

"Publishers can't rely on these platforms anymore," Zohar said. "They need to control their own audiences, create loyalty, and deliver experiences that convert casual visitors into registered users or subscribers."

This shift has coincided with broader changes in revenue models. Historically, publishers optimised for clicks and ad impressions, a strategy often criticised for undermining user experience with intrusive ads and autoplay videos. Now, many media organisations are prioritising subscription and engagement-based models. The focus is on retaining readers, cultivating communities around content, and delivering value that goes beyond fleeting visits.

A 2026 report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that AI is the dominant force transforming how news is produced, distributed, and consumed. GPT engines are expected to drastically reduce referral traffic from traditional search engines, with publishers projecting declines of around 40 per cent or more over the next three years.

The institute reported that industry leaders are placing greater emphasis on direct relationships with audiences through subscriptions, memberships, events, and diversified revenue streams.

Viafoura works with some big names in media, from The Toronto Star and Postmedia in Canada, to People Inc. and The Independent internationally. Using the Viafoura platform, these companies offer their readers and subscribers interactive engagement offerings such as Q&As, community chats, and AI-powered content moderation. 

One key trend Zohar mentioned in the industry is the use of AI and data analytics to better understand audience behaviour. Tools that track discussions in online communities can highlight topics readers care about, helping editorial teams plan stories, live events, and interactive experiences. The goal is not to automate journalism but to inform it, ensuring content aligns with audience demand.

"People are focusing on a UX and an audience relationship that builds loyalty, repeat visits and a move towards subscription or other forms of monetisation on site," he said.

By surfacing insights about which content resonates and where communities are most active, publishers can make more informed editorial and business decisions. This represents a shift from intuition-driven publishing to a more data-driven approach.

Data has become a central tool in this transformation. Traditional analytics often required manual processes: data teams would pull engagement metrics, analyse them, and then produce reports for editorial or business teams (a process Zohar said could take days).

One emerging AI-powered approach is the use of conversational interfaces over large datasets. For example, last fall, Viafoura built Project Iris, a tool that allows internal teams to query audience engagement data directly using natural language. Project Iris was built on Snowflake Intelligence, a ready-to-use agentic application that replaces static dashboards with a conversational interface.

By surfacing trends, conversion metrics, and high-performing content, tools like Snowflake Intelligence enable the Viafoura team to understand where engagement is occurring, identify content gaps -data that can then be sent to customers for additional coverage options.

"A lot of journalists will determine what they write about based on either the beat they follow, or maybe gut instinct. It's not always data driven. We're trying to add a data-driven approach to say, 'hey, you wrote an article about speed cameras, but the community is actually more interested in change in municipal laws related to age of driving,' for example."

Ultimately, the industry is navigating a delicate balance: leveraging AI and data to improve efficiency and audience insights, while ensuring that content remains human-driven and editorial standards are upheld. 

"I think human judgement is going to continue to be more important than ever when it comes to this. Being able to really understand that with AI, anyone can build anything really quickly, it's what you build now that becomes the really critical part."