2021 will be a year of profound and rapid digital change following the shock delivered by COVID-19. Lockdowns and other restrictions have broken old habits and created new ones, but it is only this year that we’ll discover how fundamental those changes have been. While many of us crave areturn to ‘normal’, the reality is likely to be different as we emerge warily into a world where the physical and virtual coexist in new ways.

This will also be a year of economic reshaping, with publishers leaning into subscription and e-commerce – two future-facing business models that have been supercharged by the pandemic. While uncertainty has boosted audiences for journalism almost everywhere, those publishers that continue to depend on print revenues or digital advertising face a difficult year – with further consolidation, cost cutting, and closures.

For giant tech platforms, the pandemic has forced a rethink on where the limits of free speech should lie. With lives at stake, and under threat of regulation, expect a more interventionist approach on harmful and unreliable content and greater prominence for trusted news brands – along with greater financial support. By year end, journalism could be a bit more separated from the mass of information that is published on the internet.

New technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) will also drive greater efficiency and automation across many industries including publishing this year. But as AI moves out of R&D labs into reallife application, we can expect more heated debate about its impact on society – about the pace of change, about transparency and fairness.