A New Era for WIRED—That Starts With You

At WIRED, we’re obsessed with how the world is transforming—and lately, there’s been a lot to obsess over. From the breakneck pace of AI research to the tectonic transformation playing out across the US federal government, WIRED’s journalists, producers, and editors are committed to reporting from the front lines of these changes and bringing all of you along for the ride.

Our goal is to wake up every day and unearth what we describe as “Story Zero”: the story before anybody even knows there’s a story to tell. We endeavor to do that work in a way that’s conversational and accessible, fearless and definitive, and ultimately helps you understand what’s changing, why, and how it’ll affect your present and your future.

I’m incredibly proud that our work this year has often achieved the lofty goals we set for ourselves: WIRED journalists have produced groundbreaking reporting on DOGE’s disruption of federal agencies, unearthed ambiguities in the Jeffery Epstein video, delivered a constant drumbeat of clear-eyed coverage on AI’s real-world impact (and the AI industry’s outrageous talent wars), and found the time to execute on narrative stories that run the gamut, from an AI-inflected murder cult to the quantum apocalypse right around the corner.

We’ve also had a lot of fun. Our creative team is pushing the boundaries of digital design, creating interactives like our quantum encryption calculator and evocative digital packages, including our deep dive into the Frontiers of Computing. And we’re translating more and more of our journalism into new formats, including the vertical video you’ll often see embedded in our stories, and our new podcast Uncanny Valley.

There are so many reasons to be excited about WIRED’s future. But it’s important to recognize that we’re doing this work within an information ecosystem that’s transforming before our eyes: The platforms on which outlets like WIRED used to connect with readers, listeners, and viewers are failing in real time; Facebook traffic disappeared years ago, and now Google Search is dwindling as the company reorients users to rely on AI Overviews instead of links to credible publishers. More and more users are also skipping Google altogether, opting to use chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude to find information they once relied on news outlets for. Meanwhile, AI-generated slop and mis- and disinformation are seeping into the internet’s every pore, polluting social media feeds and drowning out news and human-driven storytelling.

At WIRED, our solution to this so-called “traffic apocalypse,” and the AI sloppification of the internet, is simple: connect our humans to all of you humans.

Here’s the plan: We’ll continue to produce top-tier journalism and storytelling, from written stories, scoops, features, and interviews to podcasts and audio narration, to bite-size videos and livestreams. And we’re inviting you to join us, directly on WIRED.com or in your inbox, with a new subscription offering that we think is more dynamic, more engaging, and more valuable. Most of all, we’re increasingly focused on creating a community and a shared conversation between WIRED journalists and all of you—our audience of curious, brilliant, future-focused people around the world. We want to answer your questions and solicit your input and ideas. We want to know what scares you, what excites you, and what we can do to help you navigate this strange new future.

As a WIRED subscriber, you will have access to a growing set of exclusive benefits.

You can receive any of five new weekly newsletters, each of them written by a WIRED journalist. These newsletters, available only to WIRED subscribers, will showcase top-quality reporting and analysis, written by reporters who are deeply sourced experts in their field.

You’ll also have access to WIRED’s new livestream AMAs: These streams, which will run at least twice a month, are designed to connect you directly with WIRED journalists, who’ll answer your pressing questions about the biggest story or trend in the WIRED universe.

Plus, you can join WIRED journalists and fellow subscribers in the comment sections of WIRED stories to discuss, debate, or ask and answer questions.

And finally, many WIRED articles are now available in audio form, with narrated versions created exclusively for subscribers.

To our existing subscribers, thank you for supporting our journalism. To our new readers, sign up today and unlock everything WIRED has to offer.