Will 2025 be the year users embrace AI-powered news?
There’s no shortage of players betting that it’s coming. When you ask Perplexity about current events, we summarize information from six news sites with links so you can verify the accuracy of the information yourself. Microsoft’s Bing, Google’s Gemini, and others will do much the same thing. And the Washington Post recently launched Ask the Post AI, a chatbot that answers questions based on the Post’s reporting and archives.
It remains to be seen whether readers will get used to this way of getting their news. But if they switched from reading news to having stories created on the fly by AI, that would be a huge change in the news industry, changing the way we work and what we create. , and the way you make money will change drastically. We would be wise to get ahead of it.
To be sure, there are many hurdles to overcome before a GenAI-generated news world becomes commonplace, not least how accurate such systems would be. But it’s not hard to understand the appeal of such a world, at least for users. At least in theory, it’s a world where you don’t have to hunt through multiple stories and sources to get different perspectives. From foreign language publications. Context you already know won’t interfere with the copy, and forgotten background can be resolved by just querying it. A world where systems know what you’re interested in and how long it takes you to read.
Much of the technology that creates much of this world already exists. But is this something we should welcome? In a world where AI agents can scour the web to find and summarize information that matters to them, and have access to far more news than they currently have access to, more people have the potential to be better informed. there is. Similarly, because we all only read what is created for us, we can become sucked deeper and deeper into information silos.
The only thing that is certain is that the world of journalism and the work of journalists will change significantly. Indeed, there will always be a place for deep investigative work, brilliant writing, and carefully crafted insightful stories. But most journalism isn’t like that. We mostly have a more mundane job of informing our readers about the day’s events. And that’s the first thing the AI system destroys.
What is the value of a story if it is not widely read? What if those facts, insights, and analysis were instead extracted and paraphrased by an AI system? Does it make sense for a third-party news organization to confirm some information? Will news brands blur into each other in AI-summarized articles, even if each organization is given prominent credit (and links)? There is less and less need to visit news sites If so, how can advertising and traffic-based business models survive? Readers are content to remain in siled subscription gardens if they can get multiple views and perspectives from AI systems. Would you?
How should journalists and news organizations adapt to this world? Several things come to mind. Truly exclusive information, the scoop, is what matters. Smart, unique insights are difficult to replicate. Voice and personality can attract and retain readers. It might not be a bad idea to reconsider what a “story” is. At Semafor, in-person events (what we call “live journalism”) cannot be performed by chatbots, at least for now. And one way to maintain their loyalty is to be deeply involved and knowledgeable about the communities you serve. (Luckily, Semafor is all about it.)
But I’d be lying if I said I knew what would work in the brave new world of AI news. All I know is that I need to be proactive and prepare.
