People Inc. loses 26% of core web sessions as Google AI Overviews spread

People Inc., whose more than 40 brands include PEOPLE, Allrecipes and Investopedia, recorded 1.61 billion core sessions in the third quarter of 2026, 26% fewer than the 2.17 billion it logged a year earlier, according to results its parent company People Incorporated (NASDAQ: PPLI) released on November 2, 2026. Digital revenue still rose 2% to $288.5 million, the 12th consecutive quarter of growth, because licensing revenue jumped 49% while digital advertising fell 8%. The company attributed the session decline primarily to "AI-oriented search and content discovery experiences," and its earnings presentation put AI Overviews penetration at 82%.

In Short

People Inc., the company behind PEOPLE, Allrecipes and Investopedia, got about a quarter fewer visits to its main websites this summer than a year ago, mostly because Google now answers more questions itself with AI summaries. It still made a little more digital money overall, because Apple News, AI companies and other partners paid more to use its articles, even as advertising on its own websites shrank. The company is cutting 195 jobs and betting that video series, events, apps and licensing deals can make up for the visitors search no longer sends.

The quarter in numbers

People Incorporated, the holding company formerly known as IAC, reported total revenue of $430.8 million for the three months to September 30, 2026, down 4% from $447.1 million. Its operating loss narrowed to $3.0 million from $27.2 million. Adjusted EBITDA, the measure management uses to run the businesses, slipped 1% to $54.8 million.

The bottom line moved far more. People Incorporated posted a net loss of $687.5 million, or $9.15 per diluted share, against a loss of $21.9 million, or $0.27 per share, a year earlier. Almost all of that came from one line: an unrealized loss of $1.12 billion on the company's stake in MGM Resorts International, whose share price is marked to market every quarter. A $174.9 million pre-tax gain on the August 4 sale of a limited partner stake in a third-party fund and a $278.4 million income tax benefit softened the hit. According to the company, net earnings and per-share figures "reflect changes in MGM's share price as unrealized gains and losses and, as a result, can be very volatile."

The operating story sits inside People Inc., the publishing business, which generated $409.9 million of the group's revenue.

Source: People Incorporated Q3 2026 results. Total People Inc. revenue includes intersegment eliminations of $6.3 million in Q3 2026 and $5.9 million in Q3 2025.

Barry Diller, chairman and senior executive, framed the quarter around the holding company's plan rather than the traffic numbers. "We're continuing the course we laid out last year: simplify the company around People Inc. and our MGM Resorts investment. With ample capital, we're well positioned to invest in our own stock and pursue opportunities for value creation," Diller said in the release.

One accounting change matters for anyone comparing these figures with older reports. Beginning with the second quarter of 2026, People Incorporated widened its Adjusted EBITDA definition to exclude restructuring costs, gains and losses from lease changes and certain asset sales, transaction-related costs and litigation items. All prior periods have been recast on the new basis, so the Q3 2025 figures in this quarter's release do not match those published a year ago.

Sessions fall faster each quarter

Core Sessions count unique visits to the 19 owned sites People Inc. treats as its most significant by investment: PEOPLE, Allrecipes, Investopedia, Better Homes & Gardens, Verywell Health, The Spruce, Travel + Leisure, InStyle, Food & Wine, Martha Stewart, Byrdie, REAL SIMPLE, Southern Living, Simply Recipes, Serious Eats, EatingWell, Parents, Verywell Mind and Health. The metric has fallen year over year in each quarter of 2026, and the pace has quickened every time.

Source: People Incorporated grids and metrics, Q3 2026. Percentage changes are PPC Land calculations.

Total Sessions, which cover every site in the network, fell 25% to 1.79 billion from 2.38 billion. Across the four quarters to September 2026, Core Sessions added up to 7.18 billion by PPC Land's calculation, against 8.60 billion in calendar 2025 and 9.06 billion in 2024.

The company did not hedge on the cause. In its release, it said the decline in open programmatic advertising came from "lower impression volumes driven by a 26% decline in Core Sessions, due primarily to AI-oriented search and content discovery experiences." The earnings presentation was more specific: "Core Sessions declines accelerated to 26%, with 22% decline in Google Search, 82% AIO penetration." The slide does not define what the 22% Google Search figure measures.

On the call on November 3, chief financial officer Tim Quinn gave a higher penetration figure than the slide. "Total digital ads declined 8% in the quarter, and this was directly attributable to core session declines of 26%, the steepest we've seen yet. AI Overviews penetration on Google search queries are now found on over 90% of the searches we track, an increase even since Q3," Quinn said, according to the transcript. The two numbers appear to describe different moments: 82% for the quarter in the presentation, more than 90% by early November on the call.

Chief executive Neil Vogel put the decline in a longer frame. "We've lost nearly 70% of our Google search traffic over the last few years. As Tim said, AIO is now over 90% of the queries that used to send us traffic from search," he told analysts. He added that the third-quarter drop "may have been a little steeper than we anticipated, but none of it's surprising." Vogel also said the company had coined a phrase for the scenario some time ago: "we kind of made up the term Google Zero internally."

The scale of that shift was already visible earlier this year. In July, Vogel told the Wall Street Journal that Google accounted for 25% of People Inc.'s first-quarter traffic, down from more than half two years earlier, and said that "Turning them off and blocking them entirely is 100% on the table." In May 2025, when the business still reported as Dotdash Meredith, its core sessions were down only 3% and Vogel estimated that AI Overviews appeared on roughly a third of search results related to its content. Eighteen months later, the company's own estimate has more than doubled.

Will the decline flatten? Management suggested the percentages would ease simply because the base is smaller, not because search referrals would recover. "I think the absolute declines will continue. I think the percentage declines will definitely moderate, and that's just sort of the math of it," Quinn said. "We are not counting on sessions to improve, yet we do expect advertising to improve in Q4." He also noted that "most of our traffic today comes directly to our sites or is not coming from Google."

Fewer visits, higher rates

Session-based revenue, which covers advertising and performance marketing earned during a visit to an owned or affiliated site, fell 6% to $163.6 million. That is a much smaller drop than the sessions themselves. "Sessions were down 26% this quarter, but revenue was only down 6%," Vogel said.

Dividing session-based revenue by Total Sessions gives a rough sense of what each visit is now worth. By PPC Land's calculation, People Inc. earned about $91 in session-based revenue per thousand sessions in the third quarter of 2026, up from about $73 a year earlier, a rise of roughly 24%. People Inc. does not publish this metric, and the ratio mixes advertising and commerce revenue, so it is an approximation rather than a rate card. It is consistent with the release, which cited "higher rates" offsetting lower open programmatic volume, and with Quinn's remark that "our direct sold revenue and our programmatic rates are both growing really nicely."

Where the money came from

The digital business splits three ways in People Inc.'s reporting, and the three lines moved in different directions.

Source: People Incorporated Q3 2026 results.

Advertising

Digital advertising, the largest line, fell 8% to $161.9 million. According to the company, premium advertising declined because of lower premium programmatic volume and declines from "a legacy agency business," partly offset by direct-sold growth in the Health and Pharmaceuticals, Beauty and Style, and Food and Beverage categories, driven primarily by non-session-based revenue streams. Open programmatic advertising fell on lower impression volumes, partly offset by higher rates. Over nine months, digital advertising came to $482.5 million, 2.5% below the $495.0 million of the same period in 2025, by PPC Land's calculation.

Asked about the advertising market, Vogel rated it "6 out of 10" for what he said was the third or fourth quarter in a row. Health and pharma and beauty and style were strong, he said, while food "did return to modest growth in Q3" after several difficult quarters. CPG and food, in his words, are "macro exposed." He said bookings for the holiday season were tracking as expected and that "so far the American consumer is undefeated."

Performance marketing and Prime Day

Performance marketing, which includes affiliate commerce commissions earned when People Inc. content sends a reader to a retailer, rose 2% to $73.9 million. Affiliate commerce grew 4% on higher transaction volumes. In the second quarter, performance marketing had grown 13%, according to Quinn.

Quinn attributed most of the slowdown to the calendar, "in part due to the timing of Prime Day, which was a drag of about 4 percentage points of growth that was shifted into Q2 from Q3." He said the company expects performance marketing growth to return in the fourth quarter to "the mid to high single digits levels" it would have recorded in the second and third quarters without the Prime Day effect. The earnings presentation describes the majority of performance marketing as session-based, which ties this line, too, to the web traffic that is shrinking.

Licensing

Licensing and other revenue was the fastest-growing line by a wide margin. It rose 49% to $52.7 million and accounted for about 18% of digital revenue in the quarter, up from about 12.5% a year earlier, by PPC Land's calculation. The company attributed the increase "primarily to improved performance from Apple News+ and other content syndication partners as well as from the contribution of the Meta content partnership (signed in Q4 2025)."

People Inc. defines the line to include brand licensing royalties from retailers, service providers, publishers and manufacturers, content licensing royalties from Apple News+, and "other content use and distribution relationships, including utilization in large-language models and other artificial intelligence-related activities." It does not break out AI revenue separately.

Quinn described the line on the call as having "three components to it. Think about it as content licensing, AI licensing, and kind of traditional product licensing. The majority of the growth that we have seen is coming from the content licensing line." For Apple News, he said, the arrangement is "a revenue share based on time spent, based on how much content the user consumes," with People Inc. also able to sell advertising in that environment. He named Yahoo and MSN as other distribution outlets and said the company was looking at YouTube and Netflix, adding that about 15 of its brands perform well in distributed environments. On AI licensing, he said: "There is increasingly a place for recency, meaning new content in that marketplace." The third leg is product licensing, including what Quinn described as one of the biggest, if not the biggest, licensing deals at Walmart, through the Better Homes & Gardens line.

The 49% will not repeat in the fourth quarter. "In Q4, those growth rates will slow some as we lap the Meta AI deal that we announced last Q4," Quinn said. He expects full-year licensing growth to be about what the business delivered in the first half, which he said "translates to something roughly about 20% Q4 growth." First-half licensing revenue rose about 24%, to $87.7 million from $70.5 million, by PPC Land's calculation.

Beyond the website: 26 billion off-platform views

The split that management now emphasizes most is not advertising versus commerce, but session-based versus non-session-based revenue. Non-session-based revenue, which does not depend on a visit to a People Inc. site, grew 15% to $125.0 million and reached 43% of digital revenue. The earnings presentation lists its components as D/Cipher+, events, social, social video, Apple News, content syndication, AI partnerships, product licenses and digital subscriptions. The release definition also includes native campaigns, email and affinity marketing.

A two-year comparison in the presentation shows how the mix has moved. In the third quarter of 2024, People Inc. reported $267 million of digital revenue, $165 million session-based and $102 million non-session-based. Two years later, session-based revenue was $164 million, essentially unchanged, while non-session-based revenue had grown to $125 million. All of the two-year digital growth, in other words, came from outside the web visit.

"Our formula is to grow our non-sessions revenue about 15%-20% over time," Quinn said. "This part of our business will represent about half of our digital revenue by this time next year." The non-session share stood at about 38.5% in the third quarter of 2025, by PPC Land's calculation, so reaching half by the third quarter of 2027 would require that line to keep growing well ahead of session-based revenue.

The presentation sets out the audience behind that plan in three numbers, as of the third quarter of 2026: 48 million print circulation (paid subscription and newsstand copies distributed), 2 billion total web sessions and 26 billion off-platform views across YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Apple News, a count that includes emails sent and opened. Asked how those views translate into revenue, Vogel said some are paid per view, others are sponsorship-driven, and the relationship "is not like a direct line, like selling an ad on a web session."

Video series, CTV targeting and subscriptions

Vogel said People Inc. now runs more than 50 social video series across brands from InStyle to Travel + Leisure, and he described how one of them is sold. For InStyle's series "The Intern," he said: "A season is seven 3-minute episodes, and what we do is we get a sponsor, and we weave that sponsor into the plot line with a wink in a way that users enjoy." A sponsor buying a season can layer on events at InStyle and PEOPLE and media across YouTube and Instagram, according to Vogel, who called the social series "very lucrative and very high margin."

D/Cipher, People Inc.'s intent-based advertising targeting product, has moved toward television. According to Vogel, more than half of D/Cipher's business has recently been CTV targeting. He added that the slowdown on the open web had not dented the product because its data "has proven very good for CTV." Quinn said D/Cipher margins had been "a pleasant surprise."

Subscriptions are the newest bet. Vogel said that in the last quarter alone, People Inc. launched paid online subscription models for MyRecipes+ and PEOPLE VIP. "Between the two of them, we have got over 6 million people that have already signed up for these things. We just need to convert them to paying," Vogel said. Quinn put the figure at "about 6 million downloads or registrations." Neither executive gave a paying subscriber count. For comparison, Vogel said the company has "9 or 10 million subscribers to our print magazines."

Events are growing too. Vogel cited Better Homes & Gardens' Red Plaid Café and said People Inc. had made two small acquisitions in the past five or six months: The Feedfeed, which he described as an influencer network around food, and Hot Luck, a food event series for Gen Z audiences. No purchase prices were disclosed. A Southern Living Sweet Tea consumer product is "coming very soon," he said.

PEOPLE's Sexiest Man Alive served as the presentation's case study. The 41-year-old franchise, which this year named Noah Wyle of "The Pitt," now runs across the magazine, web, email, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, branded video, Apple News, AI licensing, the People app and VIP subscription, and podcasts. According to the presentation, "SMA revenues were up 50% YoY in 2026." The company did not give the underlying dollar amount.

Margins, costs and 195 jobs

Digital operating income rose 27% to $48.7 million, helped by the absence of $8.3 million in severance costs booked in the third quarter of 2025 and by $3.1 million lower amortization. Digital Adjusted EBITDA, however, fell 2% to $72.0 million, a 25% margin. According to the company, the decline reflected higher selling and marketing expense, mostly related to performance marketing revenue, and higher compensation and software license and maintenance costs.

Quinn tied part of the pressure to the new products. "There's a couple, several million dollars sort of drag in Q3 as we stand up the infrastructure, preliminary marketing, even some AI costs associated with those new projects," he said. The company is "continuing to try to manage to those healthy sort of high 20s target, say 30% full year EBITDA margins." Across the first nine months of 2026, the Digital Adjusted EBITDA margin was about 23.6%, against about 27.3% for full-year 2025, by PPC Land's calculation, which leaves the fourth quarter, the largest quarter of 2025 at $370.2 million of digital revenue, to carry the year.

On October 29, People Inc. cut staff. "Last week, we executed staffing reductions impacting 195 employees, about 6% of our workforce," Vogel said on the call. The release puts the expected severance and employee separation benefits expense at $15 million to $20 million, to be booked in the fourth quarter. Quinn said the company "needed to redeploy resources away from some of the legacy businesses like print and even the web towards these new growth initiatives."

AI is also changing how the remaining staff work. Vogel said that of a workforce the transcript records as about 3,400 to 3,500 people, "1500 of them are burning tokens at some point during the month working on things." Quinn pointed to faster software development from AI coding tools and to workflow uses ranging from "ingesting and interpreting RFPs on the sales side" to content topic research.

Print continued to shrink. Revenue fell 16% to $127.6 million, reflecting portfolio optimization and the migration of audiences and advertising from print to digital, according to the company. Print Adjusted EBITDA dropped 32% to $8.3 million. For the full year, People Inc. expects print Adjusted EBITDA to roughly offset its unallocated corporate costs.

Full-year outlook

People Incorporated's full-year 2026 outlook, which Quinn described on the call as a refinement given the current view of the fourth quarter, sets these ranges:

Source: People Incorporated Q3 2026 results. Depreciation, amortization and transaction-related costs omitted from this table.

For People Inc., the company expects fourth-quarter digital revenue growth in the low-to-mid single digits and full-year digital growth in the mid single digits. Through nine months, digital revenue stood at $831.6 million, up 5.0% from $791.7 million, by PPC Land's calculation. People Inc. reported $329.8 million of Adjusted EBITDA in 2025, so the 2026 range runs from flat to about 4.6% growth. Subtracting the $189.7 million earned in the first three quarters implies fourth-quarter People Inc. Adjusted EBITDA of roughly $140 million to $155 million, against $140.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to PPC Land's calculation.

For 2027, Vogel said: "We plan for digital growth to return to mid to high single digits in 2027." Diller set a higher bar in his opening remarks, saying the aim was "substantial growth, not single-digit growth. That is the goal," and adding: "I would be very disappointed if next year we do not reach that." Quinn reconciled the two by describing mid-to-high single digits as the path "to the double digits that Barry and we all aspire to."

The Google lawsuit

People Inc. is also suing Google. Dotdash Meredith filed an 88-page antitrust complaint in the Southern District of New York on August 29, 2025, seeking damages over Google's publisher ad server and ad exchange. The third-quarter release shows $0.7 million in higher costs related to the case, and the full-year outlook includes $12 million to $15 million for litigation matters, "including the antitrust litigation against Google." The earnings presentation lists the case among potential sources of cash, with the note "timing and outcome uncertain."

Quinn said the company is "relying on the government's findings that Google engaged in anti-competitive practices as it relates to the ad market." In October 2025, a New York federal judge gave those Virginia findings preclusive effect in the private cases, so plaintiffs do not have to prove the monopolization again. "The litigation, it is related only to damages, not to whether or not something was wrong," Vogel said.

"We believe that we have substantial claims, amongst the largest claims out there, given our lineage with Dotdash, Meredith, and Time Inc.," Quinn said. He pointed to a scheduling development in another case. According to Quinn, the court has set an April date for the USA Today litigation. "This is not our case, but it is a precedent for us. We are kind of next in the queue after it," he said. Gannett, which now trades as USA TODAY Co., and the Daily Mail survived most of Google's summary judgment motion on September 30, 2026, with damages claims of $900.8 million and $600.0 million respectively heading to a jury. Dotdash Meredith is among the follow-on plaintiffs named in coverage of that ruling.

Quinn put a floor on People Inc.'s own expectations without giving a number: "We are hopeful that it is a 2027 event, and we remain confident our claims could be at least nine figures when it is all said and done. A lot of uncertainty and a lot remains to be seen there." Nine figures means at least $100 million.

People Incorporated's relationship with Google has another, quieter thread. The company's search segment, which operated under the Google Services Agreement, ceased operations when that agreement expired on April 30, 2026, and is now reported as discontinued. Ask.com shut down on May 1, 2026, after nearly 30 years.

The holding company: MGM, cash and buybacks

People Incorporated holds 66.8 million shares of MGM Resorts International, bought for $1.3 billion and valued at $2.0 billion as of October 30, 2026, a 26.6% minority interest according to the presentation. The stake produced the $1.12 billion unrealized loss in the quarter and an unrealized loss of $364.3 million over nine months. The company spent $37.2 million on additional MGM shares in the first nine months of 2026.

Diller described a summer of talks. People Incorporated proposed taking MGM private, then withdrew the proposal on September 23, 2026. MGM then proposed buying People Inc., which Diller said the company quickly decided was not in its interest. On October 27, People Incorporated, Diller and MGM amended a voting agreement, committing not to acquire MGM stock if doing so would push their collective ownership above 29.9%. Diller said he had no intention of going beyond that level but expected the stake to rise anyway as MGM buys back its own shares: "I think that it's more than likely over time that our 26% will grow way past 29% without our putting up any additional capital in our company."

Cash stood at $1.32 billion on September 30, of which $946.4 million sat at the holding company and $372.4 million at People Inc. People Inc. carried $1.4 billion of long-term debt at a weighted average borrowing cost of 7.0% and a weighted average maturity of 5.0 years, with net debt of $1.05 billion and a leverage ratio of 3.2 times trailing Adjusted EBITDA, according to the presentation. Over the twelve months to September 30, People Inc. generated $186 million of free cash flow, while the consolidated group generated $100 million.

Asset sales filled much of the cash pile. Care.com was sold on March 16, 2026, for net proceeds of $300.2 million, at an after-tax loss of $78.3 million. The fund stake brought in $185.1 million in August, and an unused domain name sold for $7.5 million. "This year, the sale of Care, the limited partner stake that was previously announced and closed in Q3, and smaller asset sales have together generated nearly a half a billion dollars of after-tax cash," Quinn said. Remaining non-core holdings include stakes in Turo, Vivian Health, The Daily Beast and the IAC headquarters building in New York.

Most of the money is earmarked for buybacks. People Incorporated spent $133.3 million on its own shares in the first nine months, and its board authorized another 10 million shares on June 16, 2026. As of October 30, 12.5 million shares remained under the authorization, against 75.0 million shares outstanding. Diller said the company had been unable to buy its own stock during the MGM discussions and the blackout period, but would resume. "I think the predominance of the money in the short to midterm will be done, spent on share repurchase," Quinn said. Acquisitions will be small: "the acquisitions that we are looking at are bolt-ons to our current publishing business. We're not looking outside of that," according to Diller.

The presentation also argues that the stock undervalues the business. At the October 30 share price of $35.62 and 75.9 million fully diluted shares, People Incorporated's equity was worth $2.7 billion. Subtracting the $2.0 billion MGM stake and $0.9 billion of holding company cash leaves an implied value of negative $0.2 billion for everything else, a gap the slide describes with the line "Investors Are Effectively Acquiring These Private Holdings for Free." That framing is the company's own; a footnote notes roughly $0.9 billion in net operating losses that the company says can offset the taxable unrealized gain on MGM.

Corporate costs are coming down as the holding company merges its functions into People Inc. The company expects corporate annual run-rate operating expense of about $45 million and stock-based compensation of about $30 million once the transition ends in the first quarter of 2027. Quinn described the $45 million target as "cutting our former overhead burden by half." Diller, in his opening remarks, said "We've taken our overhead down by $90 million to $25 million or so," a figure that does not match the $45 million in the written outlook. Stock-based compensation rose to $25.1 million in the quarter from $15.9 million, largely because of the acceleration and modification of awards tied to the consolidation; the full-year range includes an estimated $46 million for that item.

Emerging & Other

The smaller segment grew 21% to $21.0 million. The Daily Beast's revenue rose 39% to $8.0 million on advertising, content licensing and subscription growth, and Vivian Health's rose 18% to $12.3 million, helped by an AI Assistant subscription product launched in the fourth quarter of 2025. The segment posted operating income of $3.6 million, against a loss of $20.8 million a year earlier that included $21.4 million in legal fees and settlement costs for a legacy business. Quinn said Turo, in which People Incorporated holds a minority stake, recently said it is pacing toward about $1.2 billion in revenue for the year.

Why this matters for marketers

People Inc. describes itself as the largest digital and print publisher in America, reaching more than 175 million consumers a month. Its numbers offer a measured view of what zero-click search does to a publisher at scale: open programmatic impressions fall with sessions, rates rise as supply contracts, and revenue moves toward sponsorships, licensing and distribution deals that sit outside the auction.

The pattern is not unique to one company. Chartbeat's third-quarter data put search at 12% of North American publisher pageviews, down from 21% a year earlier. Ozone figures reported in July showed publisher ad supply down by up to 40% in the second quarter of 2026. An Index Exchange analysis of 1,200 publishers found ad opportunities in health and nutrition down 40% to 50% in 2025, a category where People Inc. operates Verywell Health, Verywell Mind and Health. Ziff Davis recorded a $54.8 million write-down on its health media unit in August as its advertising and performance marketing revenue fell 6%. And USA TODAY Co. reported in May that its digital other revenues, including AI licensing with Meta and Microsoft, rose 125.6% in the first quarter.

For media buyers, the shift changes what can be bought from a publisher like People Inc. and how. Inventory that was once reached through open auctions on recipe and celebrity pages is increasingly packaged as season-long video sponsorships, events, Apple News placements and CTV audiences built on publisher data. For affiliate partners and retailers, the picture is different: most performance marketing revenue is still session-based, and Quinn described the website as the place where consumers "often choose to transact."

The question of who pays for content in an AI search environment remains open. Conde Nast chief executive Roger Lynch has told the company to plan for zero search referrals, an outlook Google chief executive Sundar Pichai did not dispute in May. People Inc.'s own answer, at least for now, is to sell its content to the platforms that keep readers on their own pages, from Apple to Meta, while pursuing damages from Google in court.

Timeline

• August 29, 2025: Dotdash Meredith files an antitrust complaint against Google in the Southern District of New York.
• October 27, 2025: Judge Castel gives the Virginia ad tech findings preclusive effect in the private New York cases.
• Q4 2025: People Inc. signs a content partnership with Meta; Vivian Health launches its AI Assistant subscription product.
• March 16, 2026: People Incorporated completes the sale of Care.com for net proceeds of $300.2 million.
• April 30, 2026: The Google Services Agreement expires and People Incorporated ceases operating its search segment.
• May 1, 2026: Ask.com shuts down after nearly 30 years.
• June 16, 2026: People Incorporated's board authorizes the repurchase of an additional 10 million shares.
• July 21, 2026: Vogel tells the Wall Street Journal that Google accounted for 25% of People Inc.'s first-quarter traffic.
• August 4, 2026: People Incorporated completes the sale of a limited partner stake in a third-party fund for $185.1 million.
• September 23, 2026: People Incorporated withdraws its proposal to acquire all MGM shares it does not own.
• September 30, 2026: Judge Castel denies most of Google's summary judgment motion against Gannett and the Daily Mail.
• October 27, 2026: People Incorporated, Barry Diller and MGM amend a voting agreement capping their collective MGM ownership at 29.9%.
• October 29, 2026: People Inc. cuts 195 jobs, about 6% of its workforce.
• October 30, 2026: The MGM stake is valued at $2.0 billion; 12.5 million shares remain under the buyback authorization.
• November 2, 2026: People Incorporated reports third-quarter 2026 results and publishes its earnings presentation.
• November 3, 2026: People Incorporated holds its third-quarter earnings call.
• Q4 2026: People Inc. expects to book $15 million to $20 million in severance costs.
• Q1 2027: Consolidation of corporate functions into People Inc. scheduled to finish, with a $45 million corporate run-rate target.

Related PPC Land coverage

• Dotdash Meredith reports Google AI Overviews impact traffic in Q1 earnings - May 2025 results, when core sessions were down 3% and AI Overviews appeared on about a third of related searches.
• Dotdash Meredith sues Google for antitrust violations, seeking damages - the August 2025 complaint behind the damages claim Quinn now puts at nine figures or more.
• Reddit and USA Today face Google exit as search traffic drops 28% - publishers, including People Inc., weighing whether to block Google.
• Ask.com closes after nearly 30 years as IAC exits the search business - the end of the search business the company ran under its Google agreement.
• Google loses bid to end $1.5bn Gannett and Daily Mail ad tech suits - the September 30 ruling that sends newspaper damages claims toward a jury.
• Judge Castel sends Google's $1.72bn ad tech damages claims to a jury - the same ruling from the AdX publisher class perspective, with Dotdash Meredith among follow-on plaintiffs.
• Court clears path for private damages in Google ad tech cases - why private plaintiffs litigate only damages.
• Search drops to 12% of North American publisher pageviews, Chartbeat finds - third-quarter search referral data across publishers.
• Publishers threaten to cut Google off as ad supply falls 40% - Ozone's second-quarter supply figures and publisher reactions.
• News publishers dodge AI traffic hit - but health and education crater - Index Exchange data on ad opportunity declines by category.
• Ziff Davis writes off $54.8m on health media as ad revenue drops 6% - another large US publisher's second quarter under search pressure.
• USA TODAY Co. makes more money from AI than ads in a single quarter - a newspaper group's licensing revenue jump in the first quarter of 2026.
• Pichai on Google Zero, AGI timeline, and a Search he admits is too opinionated - Google's chief executive on publishers planning for zero search referrals.

Summary

Who: People Incorporated (NASDAQ: PPLI), the holding company formerly known as IAC, and its publishing business People Inc., whose more than 40 brands include PEOPLE, Allrecipes, Investopedia and Better Homes & Gardens, with chairman Barry Diller, chief executive Neil Vogel and chief financial officer Tim Quinn.

What: People Inc.'s core sessions fell 26% year over year to 1.61 billion, which the company attributed primarily to AI-oriented search. Digital revenue still rose 2% to $288.5 million as licensing revenue gained 49% to $52.7 million and digital advertising fell 8% to $161.9 million. The company cut 195 jobs, kept a full-year People Inc. Adjusted EBITDA range of $330 million to $345 million, and plans to spend most of its $1.32 billion cash on share buybacks.

When: Results for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, were released on November 2, 2026, with the earnings call on November 3, 2026. The staffing reductions took place on October 29, 2026.

Where: People Incorporated is headquartered in New York. The session figures cover People Inc.'s network of websites; the off-platform audience spans YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Apple News.

Why: The results show the scale at which AI Overviews and other AI-oriented search experiences are cutting traffic to a large publisher, and how that publisher is replacing open programmatic web revenue with licensing, sponsorship, CTV targeting and subscription income, which changes how advertisers and affiliate partners can buy its audience.