Before the name change, before the press-friendly “growth” narrative, a potential buyer of the company quietly reached out and asked us to do this work. Not PR. Not consulting. Real due diligence. They wanted to know what was actually happening under the hood.

Soon after, People Inc.’s own investment team called too, asking a few carefully worded questions — and floating the classic line: “We might want to sponsor you.”
They did.
We didn’t.

Because the story here deserves more than a paid gloss. People Inc. (the artist formerly known as Dotdash Meredith) is both a success story and a warning label for digital publishing in 2025 — a company trying to reinvent itself mid-flight while the wind shifts under its wings.

The layoff headline was the loudest — 226 employees cut — but the numbers behind it complicate the story. The company also hired 320 new staff over the last year and still lists 40 open roles. This wasn’t a collapse; it was a reshuffle. Neil Vogel called it “a difficult but necessary step as we continue to evolve our business.” Corporate-speak, yes, but it tracks with what the balance sheet shows: a realignment toward growth engines, not a retreat.

The Feedfeed acquisition is the clearest signal of that intent. Rather than buying reach, People bought relevance. Feedfeed’s creator network gives them instant entry into the social food universe — an area with natural ad adjacency and evergreen content. Internally, it’s seen as the first template in a broader category expansion strategy. If it works, expect a “Feedfeed for Home” or “Feedfeed for Style” next.

Meanwhile, D/Cipher+, the company’s proprietary contextual ad-targeting platform, is quietly becoming the internal favorite. Execs told us it’s the “fastest-growing unit by both headcount and revenue.” Vogel told investors it would be “a material contributor by 2026.” Translation: they believe contextual, privacy-compliant targeting isn’t a relic — it’s their way to outlast cookie dependence and identity fatigue.

Two years ago, Vogel started ringing alarm bells about AI reshaping search. He told investors that “as recently as a few years ago, 90% of traffic on the open web came through Google,” but coming out of the pandemic, “Google started to send out less and less traffic to people like us.”

He wasn’t wrong. By Q2 of this year, AI Overviews appeared on more than half of the keywords tied to People’s content, up from roughly a third the quarter before. The effect was immediate — lower click-through rates, weaker organic sessions, and less reliable SEO economics. Vogel didn’t sugarcoat it: “The downturn in search traffic is the reason we’re doing everything we’re doing.”

That’s when the pivot really began — a push toward creator ecosystems, AI partnerships, and data-backed contextual targeting. The company’s meeting with Sam Altman two years ago proved pivotal. Vogel described it later as “a very fateful conversation,” realizing OpenAI’s technology would “replace search answers.” The result? A formal licensing deal with OpenAI, announced in May, which helped boost People’s licensing revenue 23% year over year.

The company’s also taking a firm stance against freeloaders. It’s working with Cloudflare to block nearly all AI crawlers except OpenAI’s. Vogel insists, “We embrace the benefits of AI, but AI will never create our content.” It’s a pragmatic middle ground — defend your content, but get paid when AI uses it.

Here’s where People Inc. earns some credit. While most publishers are drowning in dependence, they’ve diversified aggressively. Google referrals now account for less than a third of sessions and just 18% of digital revenue, but they are claiming that overall site traffic still grew from 1.99 billion sessions in 2023 to 2.2 billion in 2025.

Off-platform, they’re even stronger. Views across Apple News, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and ChatGPT integrations rose 50% in the last two years — from 9.5 billion to 14.7 billion. That scale doesn’t come cheap: off-platform content represents 36% of digital revenue despite generating seven times more views than owned properties. Vogel knows it’s not an even trade but sees it as insulation against Google’s volatility. “We need to aggregate audience from as many sources as possible,” he said. The logic holds — even if the margins don’t yet.

The good news: Digital ad revenue grew 5% year over year, nearly matching the IAB’s projected U.S. ad spend growth of 5.7%.

The less-good: IAC missed Q2 revenue projections ($586.9M actual vs. $601.4M expected) and the stock is down 22% since October 2024.

CEO Joey Levin called programmatic pricing “flat for most of Q2,” though it rebounded by “about 10% year over year” by June. That rebound helped People offset weak programmatic demand with direct-sold premium campaigns — especially those using the D/Cipher+ framework.

What’s impressive is that despite turbulence, People’s model is actually holding. It’s messy, yes — layoffs, product pivots, cautious investors — but there’s an actual engine here, not a corporate ghost ship. The mix of contextual innovation, creator partnerships, and licensing diversification is real — just early.

The problem isn’t what they’re doing. It’s how much time they have to prove it before the market demands faster returns.

We break down the financial models investors are using internally, the revenue path of D/Cipher+, and how the OpenAI licensing agreement is structured behind the scenes.
It’s the part they didn’t ask us to publish — and exactly why you should read it.

You read the free take. Here’s the paywalled playbook we built so you can walk into a boardroom and not sound like a press release.

Inside ADOTAT+:

Why upgrade now: The zero-click era is a tax on your margin. ADOTAT+ gives you the exemptions: models, benchmarks, and contracts language to claw back value.

Stay Bold, Stay Curious, and Know More than You Did Yesterday.