🎉  Congratulations to Alma Media on being named a winner of the 2026 Digiday Media Awards Europe for Best Use of AI.
The award recognizes Alma’s innovative application of AI to drive meaningful, measurable gains in digital subscription growth. The honor highlights Alma Media’s work at its flagship business daily, Kauppalehti, where AI-powered decisioning transformed the paywall from a static rule set into a dynamic growth engine. In partnership with Mather, Alma implemented the Sophi Dynamic Paywall Engine to bring real-time intelligence into paywall, registration, and archive strategies—while protecting reach and upholding editorial standards.
📄Explore the full case study to learn how Alma Media applied AI to turn its paywall into a scalable growth lever.
From Static Rules to Intelligent Decisioning
Alma’s approach focused on using AI to evaluate each reader interaction in real time, selecting the optimal path to balance subscription growth, registrations, and long-term engagement. The paywall was treated as part of a broader audience strategy—one that strengthens first-party data, unlocks long-tail content value, and supports sustainable growth across the lifecycle.
Measured Impact, Meaningful Results
The rollout of Sophi exceeded initial performance targets, delivering:
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50% increase in paywall subscription rate, with intercept rates tightly managed
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37% lift in direct subscriptions, contributing to overall subscription growth
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+153% growth in registrations, significantly expanding Alma’s base of known users
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Stable reach and ad revenue, even as subscription performance improved
These outcomes demonstrate how disciplined experimentation, phased rollout, and AI-driven decisioning can materially improve results without sacrificing reach or editorial integrity.
Interested in learning more about Sophi? Reach out to Ariel Burkett, VP of Global Sales and Marketing at Mather, to schedule a demo.