The Byline Bureau Launches to Save Journalism from AI

The Byline Bureau launches as Australia's first commercial network built exclusively for journalists, editors and media, giving brands a new way to build authority in the age of AI search

The Byline Bureau is a commercial network representing more than 35 working Australian journalists and editors, providing a new solution in digital marketing for the AI question on everyone’s lips.

Every partner publishes through a private Substack, giving brands a direct line into the trusted, third party content large language models (LLMs) actually cited by and in turn helping brands rank inside AI search engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. 

Founder Matthew Iozzi built the business to solve a problem most marketers are only now grasping. Large language models don't learn from brand websites, TikTok videos or Instagram reels.

They learn from trusted third party sources. Iozzi also founded Melbourne agency MadCo PR representing some of the country's biggest players in fashion and hospitality including Canada Goose, Melbourne Winery, Tigerlily and Steve Madden. 

AI has fuelled widespread debate about the future of journalism. The irony being that the technology itself depends on journalism to function. Consumers are turning to AI assistants for recommendations instead of scrolling search results, and brands are now competing for visibility inside the trusted, third party content those platforms cite. Research from Axios, Semrush and Conductor confirms it, AI platforms lean heavily on editorial journalism, expert commentary and other authoritative sources. Journalist-owned, self-published platforms like Substack are becoming a bigger part of that ecosystem by the day.

"Journalists are uniquely poised to solve the problem brands are currently facing,"

says Byline Bureau founder Matthew Iozzi.

"Journalism is changing, and there's now an alternative way for some of the most educated researchers, reporters and commentators in this country to build another revenue stream."

That opportunity exposes a stark imbalance in where brand budgets actually go. Influencer marketing in Australia is tracking toward a $1 billion year, according to Mumbrella.

Commercial spend on journalists, editors and credible commentators in contrast sits at close to nothing, despite editorial mastheads carrying more weight than almost any other content type in how AI platforms retrieve and cite information.

The math doesn't add up.

The voices AI trusts most have attracted the least commercial investment.

That's the gap The Byline Bureau exists to close.

The numbers back it up. The Klaviyo AI Shopping Index found AI usage in Australia up 45% year-on-year, with 86% of Australians now using AI tools to shop and 57% using them to plan and get inspired. Discoverability is no longer about keywords. It's about authority, credibility and how often trusted sources mention you.

The model runs across six services: cultural consultancy, commercial content and brand partnerships, Substack collaboration and commercialisation strategy, thought leadership and founder workshops, events, and AI visibility reporting. That last one is the proof point. Specialist AI visibility software benchmarks every campaign before and after execution, tracking mention frequency, citation rate, sentiment and share of voice across the leading LLMs. It's a discipline built for one thing, how brands get found, cited and recommended inside AI search, not ranked on a results page.

"For fifteen years marketers optimised for Google. Today they're optimising for AI,"

Iozzi says.

"The conversation has been about AI replacing journalism. The opposite is happening. AI models rely on trusted journalism, credible commentary and authoritative reporting to understand brands. Journalists haven't become less valuable. They've become infrastructure."

Iozzi says the idea grew out of client demand at MadCo PR. 

"We kept seeing brands ask the same question: how do we get inside the conversations AI is referencing?"

says.

"Influencer marketing is built around reach. PR is built around earned media. The next evolution is trust marketing, partnering with credible voices who actually influence conversations and create content that keeps paying off long after the campaign ends."

The Byline Bureau launches with a strong slate of principal partners already locked in: global footwear brand Steve Madden, Australian-owned spirits group Superdrop, and national flexible workspace network The Commons. 

The business has also attracted a strategic group of investors and advisors, including Clare Winterbourn, founder and share-holder of Australia's leading influencer talent agency Born Bred Talent (she stepped away from the business in early 2026 to back high-growth ventures and mentor emerging founders), and Cameron Smith, former Herald Sun, Nine Network and Network Ten  journalist and founder of earned-first agency Enthral.

Winterbourn is widely regarded as having driven early TikTok adoption across ANZ, a bet that helped turn The Inspired Unemployed into household names. 

"I've spent years building and scaling my own business. Having the opportunity to invest in founders with bold visions and back businesses reshaping culture, media and community”

Winterbourn notes.

“The Byline Bureau is exactly that kind of opportunity and shines a light on some of the hardest working people in the space, journalists."

"Journalists have a hidden superpower through their natural curiosity, storytelling ability and deep read on audiences, and that's a magic formula for brands,"

says Enthral founder Cameron Smith.

"When I was approached about The Byline Bureau, it was a chance to back Matt's concept and give talented journalists a platform that recognises their skills, creatively and financially."

More than 35 journalists and editors make up the bureau, spanning fashion, technology, beauty, culture, entertainment, sport, lifestyle and business. Names include A Current Affair’s Leila McKinnon, Harper's Bazaar Australia's former digital editor Hayley Peppin, Sunrise's Shaun White, sports journalist Sarah Burt, wellness writer and author Elle Halliwell and award-winning author and futurist Andrea Clarke. They have experience from some of the biggest media outlets across Australia and the world including Broadsheet, Are Media, News Corp and Seven.

The industry it draws from is shrinking fast. More than 300 media roles have been made redundant in Australia this year, including several high-profile newsroom restructures. Iozzi says The Byline Bureau gives experienced journalists a way to keep doing the work they trained for, on their own terms, with control over where and how it's published.

"SEO isn't disappearing, but it's no longer enough,"

he says.

"The brands that win over the next decade won't simply create content for algorithms. They'll create credible conversations that algorithms learn from."

For marketers the message is simple, stop chasing attention and start building authority.