AI news aggregation CPMs drop 40% as human editors cut costs

Programmatic ad revenue for AI-curated news feeds fell from $12 to $7 CPM last quarter due to advertiser skepticism over hallucination rates. We pivoted to a hybrid model where human editors verify top stories, reducing churn from 18% to 6%. The cost per verified article rose by $0.40, but lifetime value per user increased by 22%.