Taboola has launched DeeperDive, a generative AI answer engine embedded directly into publisher websites. Currently in beta with USA Today and The Independent, the tool provides AI-generated answers to user questions, pulls content from Taboola’s 9,000+ publishing partners, and surfaces related articles and ads—all without sending users to a search engine.
The pitch to publishers is clear: keep traffic on-site, improve engagement, and monetize through context-aware advertising. It’s a strategic response to the rise of external AI chatbots and a bet that publishers will prefer building value on their own domains instead of feeding the open web.
What’s really happening here isn’t about Taboola; it’s about the collapse of traditional top-of-funnel strategies. As answer engines from OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity start stripping clicks out of the search flow, publishers are scrambling to defend what’s left of their traffic. Is DeeperDive the answer? It’s certainly an answer. Kudos to Adam Singolda and the team at Taboola for offering an alternative solution for the open web.
Author’s note: This is not a sponsored post. I am the author of this article and it expresses my own opinions. I am not, nor is my company, receiving compensation for it. This work was created with the assistance of various generative AI models.