Publisher group says AI cut visitors 26%, quoting Microsoft’s ‘doom loop’

Digital Content Next, the publisher trade association whose members include The New York Times, asked a federal judge in New York on October 29, 2026 to accept a brief that sets Microsoft’s own description of an AI “doom loop” alongside figures from its members: a 26 percent fall in unique visitors between 2023 and 2025, and a median 22 percent year-over-year drop in referred web traffic over an eight-week period in 2026.

The 5,559-word document, styled a proposed brief of amicus curiae in support of the news plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, was docketed as Exhibit A to entry 2325 in In re: OpenAI, Inc. Copyright Infringement Litigation, No. 25-md-3143, the consolidated proceedings before US District Judge Sidney H. Stein in the Southern District of New York. It joins the record only if the judge grants leave. It is advocacy from a trade body whose members include one of the plaintiffs, a fact the brief discloses, and its member figures come from surveys that, according…