USA Today Co. announced a partnership with data analytics software company Palantir on Thursday to analyze audience data and accelerate monetization, as the nation’s largest newspaper chain faces a sharp decline in search-driven traffic.
In its second-quarter earnings call on August 6, 2026, USA Today Co. chairman and CEO Mike Reed told investors the partnership would “strengthen how we collect, connect and activate audience data to drive more effective and faster monetization across our platform.” The company reported 158 million average monthly unique visitors in Q2, down from 180 million in Q1—a drop of 22 million visitors in a single quarter.
Reed framed the Palantir engagement as a direct response to the traffic challenge. “Every visit, every session, and every moment of attention creates a signal,” he said. “When we connect those signals, they become actionable intelligence that allows us to engage users more effectively and monetize those relationships faster and at much greater value.”
USA Today Co. owns more than 200 local newspapers across the United States alongside its national publication. Kristin Roberts, president of USA Today Media, attributed the quarterly decline to industry-wide search traffic challenges rather than reduced demand for content. “What it reflects is lower referrals from traditional search because of those consumer discovery changes that we’re seeing,” Roberts said, alluding to the impact of AI-powered search results and answer engines that bypass publisher websites.
The partnership represents a broader shift in how media companies are addressing declining referral traffic. Other publishers have responded with cost-cutting measures, while USA Today Co. is investing in technology to build what it calls a “first-party data” strategy. Reed emphasized that the company retains ownership of its data: “It’s really just leveraging this incredible AI and software that Palantir has to allow us to move so much faster and to be so much smarter with the data we have today.”
USA Today Co. is not the first major media company to adopt Palantir’s tools. Axel Springer, which owns Business Insider, Politico, Bild, and The Telegraph, has used Palantir Foundry to build a data-driven publishing operation. Fox News has also worked with Palantir to develop custom AI newsroom tools, a partnership that has been underway for more than a year. Both deals signal a trend among large publishers toward enterprise data platforms as a hedge against traffic volatility.
The timing of USA Today Co.’s announcement reflects mounting pressure on the publishing industry. Search traffic to major publishers has declined sharply in 2026, driven by the rise of AI-powered search results that provide summaries without directing users to original articles. When USA Today’s World Cup coverage generated 97 million pageviews in Q2, search accounted for nearly 65% of that traffic—illustrating both the scale of search’s importance and the company’s vulnerability to its decline.
Reed signaled that USA Today Co. is willing to take aggressive action if negotiations with Google fail. “I can see a day where we turn off scraping or making our content available for the search engine links,” he said. “We’re actually more hopeful that we can be proactive with Google in negotiating a fair licensing deal. That would be our preferred path—to have our content appear both in traditional search as well as in AI summaries. But if we have to cut them off and block them in order to get to a deal, then we’ll do that for sure.”
Sources
- Nieman Lab — USA Today Co. partnership announcement with Palantir, CEO Mike Reed quotes, Q2 earnings data (158 million vs. 180 million unique visitors), and industry context on search traffic decline
- A Media Operator — Q2 2026 earnings report confirming 12% year-on-year EBITDA decline and Palantir partnership timing
- Poynter Institute — Confirmation of partnership announcement and Reed’s monetization strategy statement
- Axios — Fox News partnership with Palantir for AI newsroom tools
