Guest · AI search, agents and discovery
Dan Reeves
Co-Founder, Subjct
More than two decades from magazine ad sales to editorial AI, Reeves argues that human storytelling and trust decide what wins in an AI search world.
About
Dan Reeves is co-founder of Subjct, an AI content optimisation platform built to help publishers and brands make human-first content discoverable in both classic and AI search. He works at the intersection of content and technology, with deep roots in traditional media and a career spanning publishing, journalism, content marketing and editorial AI.
Reeves left university and, in classic fashion for the age, started at the B2B publisher Centaur selling advertising space, his first entry into magazine media. He moved to EMAP in the mid-1990s during what he describes as the halcyon days for magazines, working on the commercial side alongside the editorial teams on Q, Arena and The Face as music titles behaved like an extension of the record labels and drove cultural narratives.
He later launched his first company with his business partner Ben, built on helping brands become publishers, and the agency incubated a natural language processing product, Loyal AI, for richer archive search funded through Google Digital News Initiative and innovate grants. Reeves and Ben then stripped everything back to launch Subjct, targeting sharp pain points around scalable content optimisation and discovery, which he says is not a platform that generates AI content but one that optimises human-first content for how search now works.
Career32 years
- 2024 to now SUBJCT Co Founder
- 2020 to 2024 LOYAL AI Co-Founder, MD Content, TRUE 212 Ltd and LOYAL AI
- 2020 to 2024 LOYAL AI Co Founder
- 2012 to 2021 TRUE Co Founder, Managing Director, Content, TRUE 212 ltd
Show earlier roles: TRUE Africa, TRUE, Dennis Publishing, Development Hell Ltd, Emap, Emap Advertising, Emap Metro
- 2015 to 2019 TRUE Africa Partner and Head of Agencies and Partnerships
- 2012 to 2019 TRUE Commercial Director and Partner
- 2011 to 2012 Dennis Publishing Publisher The Big Issue
- 2010 to 2011 Dennis Publishing Group Sales Director The Week and Dennis Fitness Group
- 2006 to 2010 Dennis Publishing Group Sales Director The Week and Dennis Lifestyle
- 2002 to 2006 Development Hell Ltd Advertising Director
- 1994 to 2002 Emap Commercial Director Mens Group
- 1994 to 2002 Emap Advertising Commercial Director Mens Group
- 1994 to 1997 Emap Metro Ad Manager Q Magazine
How Dan thinks3 convictions
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Trust holds the system up
Reeves argues that AI search only functions if it can draw on an ecosystem of trustworthy content, returning answers with authority and truth. Without that trust, he warns, the systems collapse in on themselves. He hopes for a transactional model in which publishers and creators are remunerated for the content that feeds the machines.
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Storytelling is the constant
Across every change from print to web to AI, Reeves keeps returning to great storytelling as the thing that endures. He believes there is an innate sense of what people want to interact with, rooted in the human condition, that will keep driving how content is made and consumed. The delivery mechanism changes, the story does not.
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Publishers monetise the relationship
As arbitrage advertising models disappear with declining traffic, Reeves sees survival in the first-party relationship. Publishers, he says, are resilient and hold an amazing bond with their readers, viewers and listeners. The task is monetising that relationship through subscriptions and recurring revenue rather than chasing scale.
