Pablo Altieri, Founder of Diagonal Minds
September 11th, 2025
In this exclusive Q&A, Pablo Altieri, Founder of Diagonal Minds, shares his take on the state of Latin America’s media industry, covering subscription adoption, AI disruption, and the innovations publishers need to stay sustainable in the years ahead.
Q1: How would you describe the state of the media industry in Latin America, and what unique challenges or opportunities do publishers face compared to other regions?
Barring a few exceptions, I don’t think the media industry in Latin America is fundamentally different from other regions in terms of challenges. The uncertainty we face comes from three main forces:
- The evolution of AI and new habits in news consumption;
- The search for fair commercial terms between AI platforms and content owners; and
- The visible drop in traffic and monetization caused by Google’s algorithm updates and “zero-click” searches.
Regardless of where a media outlet operates, this context forces publishers to focus on opportunities to survive, reinvent themselves, and remain sustainable—building brand positioning as a reference point amid the rise of misinformation, producing high-quality content tailored to every audience, and developing subscription models with clear, compelling propositions.
As AI-generated content floods the market, the need to verify “what’s real” is becoming more valuable. This is where outlets can regain relevance, especially among under-40 audiences who want to feel informed, not manipulated. The opportunity is there—subscriptions as a sustainable model, even in markets where readers have traditionally resisted paid news.
But Latin America has additional hurdles: the rapid talent drain to tech and e-commerce companies, MediaTech solutions that are unaffordable when priced for U.S./European markets, and -in many occasions- a lack of strategic alignment across editorial, commercial, tech, product, and legal teams.
Q2: How is digital transformation reshaping the Latin American media landscape, and what role do emerging technologies like AI and automation play?
Digital transformation stopped being optional years ago. But even outlets that already are “digital first” often aren’t truly “mobile first” yet—despite 90% of traffic now coming from smartphones. I believe we’ve already entered the era of “UX first”: audiences value the how as much as the what, prioritizing seamless experiences and meaningful connections with brands and content creators.
We’ve also seen that launching subscriptions, which often don’t yet cover operating costs, has pushed publishers -as a consequence- to lean more heavily on advertising. But overly aggressive ad strategies backfire, alienating loyal audiences instead of retaining them.
Since 2023, AI and automation have begun to streamline editorial workflows, scale article production, and optimize ad performance. In 2024, publishers started testing tools to enhance the reader journey—adding audio players, generating text summaries, etc. In 2025, we have started to see early adopters experimenting with text-to-video, and using first-party data to also personalize content, instead of only using data for their advertising segmentation.
Still, we’re in a transitional stage. Only about 10% of Latin American publishers are using AI at scale in business or user experiences, emulating cases recognized at the INMA and WAN-IFRA awards. By 2026, I expect adoption to accelerate as more outlets will replicate regional and local success stories. AI can’t remain experimental. It must become a core driver across editorial, commercial, product, and technology.
Q3: Subscription and membership models are growing worldwide. Do you see the same trend in Latin America?
Unlike other regions, many audiences in LatAm remain hesitant to subscribe, preferring free options. Even so, nearly all leading outlets in Latin America’s markets have adopted subscription models in recent years, and subscriber numbers continue to grow. Even if just a few may have surpassed advertising revenue, it’s a clear medium-term goal.
The paradox is that uncertainty creates opportunity. Today it’s almost impossible to know whether news consumed on social media is accurate. AI is multiplying the volume of text, images, audio, and video like never before. This creates a unique fertile ground for outlets that can deliver clarity and authority.
But credibility alone isn’t enough. To succeed, publishers must also meet the expectations of younger, mobile-first audiences. These readers spend hours on social platforms and prefer short-form video, podcasts, and social-first storytelling to long articles. Trust is becoming the new currency, but it must be urgently paired with the formats and experiences people actually use.
Q4: Many Latin American publishers face economic and political challenges. How can innovation help them stay resilient and sustainable?
In an industry where outlets must adapt almost in real time to changes from tech giants and new consumption habits, innovation is essential. It’s what allows publishers to optimize processes, reduce costs, increase speed, enable personalization, and build models that can withstand turbulence.
In Latin America, the challenge is even greater. Alongside global threats, some countries also face economic and political instability. In some markets, high taxes on foreign services increase costs or block access to cutting-edge MediaTech.
At Diagonal, we work hard to negotiate with leading MediaTech providers to “localize” their models and pricing. Our goal is to make sure our network of 1,000+ executives can not only evaluate the tech innovations we recommend, but actually deploy them in a way that delivers clear ROI and fits the realities of each market.
Q5: What are the biggest challenges ahead, and where do you see the greatest opportunities in the next 3–5 years?
The challenges are the ones I mentioned earlier—AI disruption, zero-click searches, shifting consumption habits—accelerated by the speed of change. We don’t yet know how quickly mass adoption of AI platforms with a ‘content provider role’ will scale, but the direction is clear: they’re reshaping how audiences access information.
The opportunities are equally clear. News brands’ relevance and subscriptions grow faster when audiences need certainty in a noisy environment. Monetization can also evolve: by protecting the reader experience, testing higher-value formats, and -while publishers may keep losing visits- extending their ad inventory with offsite strategies and first-party data will be a ‘must’, much like e-commerce companies use retail media.
From my conversations with the digital directors of +100 publishers, tech companies, agencies and brands in LatAm/US/EU,, one lesson is consistent: while challenges and opportunities are globally similar, success depends on vision and pace. The outlets that test, learn, and adapt quickly will thrive. In today’s media landscape, hesitation is costly, and slow movers really risk being left behind.
About Pablo Altieri
Founder of Diagonal Minds, Pablo Altieri advises on industry trends, MediaTech innovation, and new business models, working with 1,000+ media executives worldwide. He serves as a jury member for INMA, WAN-IFRA, and Press Gazette awards, is a MediaTech advisor to GDA, and previously led digital strategy at IBM and Grupo Clarín.
