Inside KG Media’s AI experiments in the ‘post-pageview era’
By Julia Barcelon
During the Digital Media Asia conference in Manila, Dian Gemiano, the Chief Marketing Officer of KG Media, described the growing challenges facing publishers in what he called the “post-pageview era.”
Social reach continues to expand, but advertising revenue tied to owned platforms is steadily declining. AI is also rapidly changing how brands and agencies create and distribute content, leaving many publishers struggling to adapt.
“The advertising ecosystem is broken for us,” he said, explaining that brands can now use AI to generate thousands of ad variations almost instantly while publishers receive little benefit from that shift.
KG Media is the largest media group in Indonesia, and produces many multi-platform brands, including Indonesia’s leading national newspaper Kompas.
Instead of focusing solely on newsroom automation, the company has concentrated its AI experiments on commercial growth, audience engagement, and intellectual property development. This approach, Gemiano said, is less about highly sophisticated systems and more about practical, scalable applications.
Turning social reach into revenue
One of the main priorities of KG Media is finding ways to monetize growing audiences outside traditional websites.
They developed an AI-supported video distribution system that automatically matches advertisements with editorial video content based on relevance, context, and brand safety before publishing them across social media platforms.
The system builds on years of first-party data collection and helps automate the distribution of hundreds of videos uploaded daily. By integrating advertising demand directly into the workflow, KG Media hopes to strengthen revenue opportunities from social and video content rather than relying heavily on pageviews.
Gemiano said the scale of content distribution makes even simple AI applications valuable. “It’s not rocket science,” he remarked, but automation allows the company to move faster and operate more efficiently.
Strengthening client relationships through AI
AI is also being used to expand KG Media’s commercial research services. The company enhanced its internal media intelligence tools with AI to improve perception analysis, contextual understanding, and language recognition in Bahasa Indonesia.
Gemiano says traditional media monitoring systems often miss slang, cultural nuances and accurately identifying specific public figures. KG Media can offer advertisers and clients deeper contextual analysis and more precise audience insights with AI.
The said insights are now incorporated into commercial proposals and client discussions, helping the company better understand advertiser needs while improving business relationships.
Preserving brand identity through AI
Beyond advertising, KG Media is experimenting with AI-powered subscriber engagement tools. The company is currently training a self-hosted AI system using archives from Kompas publications dating back to 1965.
The goal is to preserve the distinctive writing style and editorial voice associated with Kompas journalism.
Gemiano explained that future AI tools, including chatbots and editorial assistants, are expected to reflect the tone and communication style of Kompas journalists rather than sounding generic or automated.
For KG Media, maintaining that editorial “DNA” is essential as AI becomes more integrated into audience experiences.
Reviving legacy IP for new audiences
AI has also opened new possibilities for reviving older intellectual properties. Gemiano highlighted “Bobo,” a long-running Indonesian children’s magazine first published in the 1970s, as one example.
Using AI-assisted animation tools, KG Media transformed the publication’s stories into digital animated content at a fraction of the traditional production cost and time.
What previously required months of work and thousands of dollars can now be produced within hours. The reduced barriers allow the company to experiment with new storytelling formats while expanding older brands to younger digital audiences.
Turning news into entertainment
Among KG Media’s most unusual experiments is “News Karaoke,” a format that delivers serious trending news through AI-generated karaoke songs inspired by Indonesian music culture.
Designed to resemble retro music videos, the project was initially intended as a playful way to engage younger audiences with hard news topics. The result, however, exceeded expectations.
Gen Z audiences not only interacted with the content but also continued reading the full stories on KG Media’s platforms, Gemiano said.
The experiment eventually created an unexpected business opportunity when an oil company purchased the rights to one of the AI-generated songs for use across petrol stations in Indonesia.
For Gemiano, the experience reflects a broader lesson about AI adoption in media. Publishers, he argued, often overcomplicate AI discussions while overlooking simpler creative opportunities.
“Sometimes we think too hard about AI,” Gemiano said. “Simple AI technology can also be good for you.”
About the author: Julia Barcelon is a Literary and Cultural Studies student at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
