HuffPost UK has adopted Taboola's DeeperDive AI answer engine for its website, placing a generative AI question-and-answer tool directly on its own platform.
The product is designed to answer reader questions using HuffPost UK's journalism and direct users to related articles on the site. According to Taboola, the system also draws on material produced by publishers and editors across the open web, presenting responses and prompts in a conversational interface.
The agreement comes as publishers assess how to respond to changes in online search and discovery, including the spread of AI-generated summaries that can reduce traffic to news websites. Media groups have been testing tools that keep readers on their own properties longer and create new ways to present existing reporting.
Reader focus
For HuffPost UK, the rollout is centred on using AI to handle topic-based queries while keeping its reporting at the heart of the experience. Readers can ask questions on subjects they care about and receive responses tied to the site's journalism, alongside links to additional coverage.
The tool also suggests questions that may interest users and provides extra context from the same publisher site. Taboola presents this as a way to deepen engagement and encourage readers to explore more articles rather than leaving for external search platforms.
"The way people access information is changing, but audiences still want high-quality, trustworthy content. DeeperDive enables us to use AI in a way that is helpful to our audience, without compromising on quality, so that we can continue to provide UK audiences with the accurate and compelling journalism for which HuffPost is known," said Cate Sevilla, Editor-in-Chief, HuffPost UK.
Publisher economics
The commercial case for such products is becoming more important as publishers face pressure on referral traffic and advertising income. Taboola says DeeperDive could offer an additional source of revenue by placing advertising within AI-generated results pages tied to user questions.
The company describes this as a way for publishers to capture search-style advertising demand on their own sites. The approach reflects a broader push across the media industry to retain both audience attention and the commercial value attached to user intent.
Each user query is met with a direct answer and links to relevant articles from the publisher's archive and current reporting, according to Taboola. It argues that this could increase time spent on site and support repeat readership by making it easier for users to move from one story to another.
Wider context
DeeperDive is part of a growing category of AI tools aimed at publishers rather than general consumer search. Instead of relying only on broad model training data, the product uses publisher content and Taboola's wider data signals from its network, which the company says reaches more than 600 million daily active users across 9,000 publisher partners.
That scale gives Taboola a large set of behavioural signals about what people are reading and engaging with at a given moment. The company says those signals help shape timely answers and suggested questions, although the user-facing result on HuffPost UK is framed around the publisher's own site and journalism.
Taboola has long been known for recommendation widgets and advertising technology used by news publishers and consumer internet groups. With DeeperDive, it is seeking to expand that role by offering publishers an AI-led interface that sits closer to search and discovery.
For publishers, the attraction is straightforward: if readers increasingly expect direct answers rather than lists of links, news organisations need ways to meet that expectation without losing their relationship with users. Embedding an answer engine on a publisher's own site is one route now being tested.
"HuffPost is taking their great history of creating human-centric, reader-first news even further with DeeperDive," said Adam Singolda, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Taboola. "With DeeperDive, HuffPost readers can enjoy a more personalised experience than ever before, as they ask their own questions and learn about the topics that matter to them most. We look forward to seeing how DeeperDive can drive Huffpost's growth and support the publication as it continues to put people at the heart of its reporting."