In a move aimed at flipping the script on AI-driven search engines, Taboola has introduced DeeperDive, a new answer engine powered by generative AI but built to live directly on publisher websites. The idea is simple: give readers fast, conversational answers powered by each publisher’s own reporting—without losing control of traffic or revenue.
A Direct Answer to AI Scraping
Traditional AI search engines pull information from across the web, often without permission. They summarize or repackage it, offer quick answers, and send little or no traffic back to the source. This approach undermines publishers. It leaves them out of the value exchange.
DeeperDive changes that. It lets publishers bring the convenience of AI-assisted search directly onto their own websites. Instead of losing readers to third-party platforms, they keep users engaged in-house, right where the content was created in the first place.
Built With—and For—Big Publishers
Taboola worked with major news organizations to bring this product to life. Gannett | USA TODAY Network became the first to roll it out in the U.S., while The Independent is leading the way in the U.K. Both publishers are using DeeperDive not only to serve smarter content, but to strengthen loyalty among readers who want fast, helpful answers from a source they recognize.
Michael Reed, CEO of Gannett, sees it as a new tool to deepen the audience connection. “With DeeperDive, we see an opportunity to give our readers an innovative new way to explore our trusted content,” he said. “Taboola is helping us unlock growth.”
How DeeperDive Works
Readers type a question. DeeperDive responds with clear, human-like answers using content from that specific publisher’s archive. It doesn’t just stop with one answer—it offers follow-up context, related stories, and deeper reading, all from the same source. This keeps readers engaged and gives them more reasons to stay longer.
The technology is trained on real-time user behavior—what people are reading, sharing, and asking about across Taboola’s network of 9,000 partners and 600 million daily active users. This gives it a feel for what matters right now, not just what mattered six months ago when the model was trained.
Monetization Comes Built In
This isn’t just about saving traffic. It’s also about creating new revenue.
DeeperDive includes a new ad placement feature. It inserts relevant, high-intent ads into the results page, similar to how search engines monetize answers. The difference? All that ad revenue stays with the publisher. That means search-like monetization, without giving up the audience.
Adam Singolda, Taboola’s founder and CEO, was blunt about the stakes. “It’s the shift from 50 cents per click to $500 per conversion,” he said. “Right on the publisher’s site.”
A Broader Signal to the Industry
Christian Broughton, CEO of The Independent, pointed to the wider potential. His organization recently launched a newsletter platform called Bulletin for time-strapped readers. He sees DeeperDive as a perfect complement—something that can help deliver fast answers and strengthen the relationship between readers and trusted outlets.
“The Independent is investing in AI, but we’re doing it in a way that puts our journalism front and center,” Broughton said. “DeeperDive helps us do that.”
Putting Control Back in Publisher Hands
Singolda added another message that goes beyond technology. “The open web thrives when innovation and fairness go hand in hand,” he said. “It’s not sustainable for AI tools to feed off publisher content and give nothing back. That’s not innovation. That’s exploitation.”
With DeeperDive, Taboola is giving publishers a way to push back without falling behind. Instead of losing out to generative AI tools, publishers can now compete directly—with their own stories, their own voice, and their own terms.
Why This Matters
DeeperDive represents more than a new feature. It’s a shift in how content owners can respond to generative AI.
Rather than losing visitors to summarizing bots, publishers can now meet readers with smart responses using their own archives. They keep the user, the data, and the revenue. And they stop being silent participants in someone else’s business model.
Whether that leads to a full reversal of how information flows online remains to be seen. But the message is clear: the open web still has a fight in it. And with tools like this, publishers finally have something to fight with.
