Narcity Media Group is taking a new approach to its content to reflect changes in digital publishing, media consumption and the concept of free media.

Narcity CEO Chuck Lapointe says free media – where viewer traffic is monetized with ad dollars – is not a sustainable future for the publisher. What Narcity users and consumers in general are craving, says Lapointe, is a more personal, engaging and human media experience.

The solution for Narcity is to move away from the high-output approach typically associated with digital media. It will instead focus on longer form, human experience reporting that brings readers closer to the events and people shaping their cities. Plans also include a membership offering exclusive content and unlimited access to its AI Valet and a to-be-revealed gamified reading experience.

Rather than chasing the same breaking news as other media outlets, Lapointe says Narcity will be doubling down on its core focus and verticals such as travel, food and drink, money and lifestyle. Those have long been seen as the main pillars within Narcity, but it had been forced to move to a more general news approach when the pandemic began.

“[We are] really going into the more experiential and digital-first reporting, which essentially means longer form content while on the ground taking photos, taking videos and really going with a creator-first type focus – things that AI will never be able to replicate,” Lapointe says. “We’re going to be giving users a lot more depth in our content, and a lot less output. So, we’ll be covering a lot less things but the things that we do cover, we’re going to go deeper.”

What that will eventually lead to in the future is a membership offering, not a typical paywall.

“It’s about how can we develop our expertise and authority of those four core topics and verticals enough that eventually, people are willing to pay for the service offered, that’s associated to that,” Lapointe says. “That’s going to take a long time, but for us, that’s the only kind of future that we see because I just don’t see the free media scale at all cost model working anymore.”

Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a role in the new Narcity focus for both its staff and its readers. Though it will never replace its writers, it can help with productivity, helping them edit stories, brainstorm new ideas, explore topics and “help the team do more with less” to focus more of their time on the creative process. On the reader side, the AI Valet is being used to enhance their experience.

“With the connection to OpenAI now, we can give recommended articles in real time based on the context of the article,” Lapointe says. “It is essentially a ChatGPT connection but with the knowledge base of our entire catalogue of content. It will be able to answer questions like what to do this weekend in Toronto, or I’m going on a date, can you recommend a few spots, or I’d like to know more about of the neighborhood we’re moving to.”

Narcity will be rolling out AI-enhanced features across its websites over the next few months. Narcity Media Group operates a city-based digital network across North America.

Aside from its content output, Narcity has also been looking for different approaches to its advertising and relationships with agencies in recent years.