United KingdomMedia and entertainment2025 – ongoingFuture plc
Advisor, an in-house AI engine that categorises content and drives recommendations
Future said onsite click-through rates tripled after it built its own AI engine to recommend articles and products
Problem
Future runs more than 50 publications and wanted onsite recommendations and ad targeting that read content more closely than whole-page analysis did. Digital advertising revenue was down 8% year on year in the half to March 2025.
Approach
Future built Advisor in-house on its Aperture audience data platform. It uses machine learning and OpenAI language models to read individual paragraphs, images and price points in articles in real time. Advisor powers four main onsite widgets that suggest articles, products or deals, replaced search on its sites and supported chatbots such as Hammerbot for Tom's Guide. Future also began pitching it to advertisers for targeting, and ten advertisers tested it.
Results
Takeaway
Future first used the engine to lift engagement on its own sites, then offered the same content signals to advertisers. It did not say how much revenue per session rose.
Categories
- Industry
- Media and entertainment
- Business function
- Marketing and sales
- Innovation type
- Product and service innovation
- AI technology
- Generative AIRecommendation and personalization
- Adoption
- Built in-house
- Evidence
- Company's own claim
Sources
Source summaries
Digiday describes Future's Advisor engine and the widgets and chatbots it powers. Future's head of commercial products said click-through rates tripled and revenue per session rose, without giving an amount. Ten advertisers tested it for targeting.
Full details are in the original sources.
