I’m recently back from the INMA World Congress in New York, where I heard many brilliant speakers share their insights with us over five days during study tours, the main conference and four seminars, as well as informally over food and drink. 

It was energising, invigorating and inspiring — and I can’t wait for the next World Congress, to be held in Berlin next May.

In case you missed the event, here are some of the key insights shared with us, seen through the lens of a world in which AI is widely used.

Sonali

Differentiation, AI agents — and human connection

Differentiation: As Almar Latour, CEO of Dow Jones, said: Traffic is a terrible word because it refers to an anonymous swarm descending upon your Web site and disappearing equally quickly. Audience is what we should care about — the people who come to us because we offer them something of value. 

We need to differentiate between the two.

Against the backdrop of dwindling search referral traffic due to AI overviews, this has never been more true. 

As news brands, we can no longer be all things to all people. This leads us to a second type of differentiation, this time in the content that we provide — where we need to think about the value exchange with our digital audience and focus more sharply on what it is that we provide them with that they truly value.

As Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, said: “We need to keep the high intent users. I don’t mind if we lose 90% of Google traffic but we keep the 10% who are most likely to subscribe.” 

Human connection: One theme that popped up time and aInternet contains an abundance of content (both human-generated and AI-generated), where 200-year-old news organisations are competing with content creators on YouTube and TikTok, why would anyone prefer to go to content on your Web site or app?

Gerold Riedmann, editor-in-chief of Der Standard in Austria, told us that 40% of the engagement with his news brand was on user-generated content, such as comments and on forums that users created themselves. 

People want to connect with other people. Readers return not only for the content but also to interact with other members of the community.

We heard from Noor Tagouri, a young, award-winning journalist who is now exclusively on social media as a content creator. She spoke of the need for authenticity and urged us to expand our definition of storytelling.

AI actually makes it easier to do this. We can present our content in many formats — whether it is text, audio, vertical video, infographics or animation — at a very low marginal cost. It helps us show new audiences that we are relevant to them.

An additional benefit is this: In a world flooded with AI-generated “slop,” the value of hearing from a trusted voice is magnified. Humans trust other humans. Any news organisation with trusted, credible columnists and reporters, with distinctive voices and opinions, has an advantage because they possess something scarce that cannot be easily replaced by generic AI-generated summaries. 

We need to leverage this.

Agents: How will AI agents change the world in which our media businesses operate? 

At the moment, your Web site contains pages with content and advertisements on the assumption that the person who comes to read the content may see the ad, might click on it, and perhaps will even buy something. 

In the future, though, you may have one agent summarising the news for you and another one doing your shopping. This will mean we need to design our user experience differently — and we may need to reconsider our revenue models entirely.

Date for the calendar: Wednesday, June 11

It’s 2025, GenAI is everywhere, and guess what I still get a lot of questions about? Print automation. Please join our Webinar on Wednesday, June 11 at 10 am New York time to hear from two speakers discuss their experiences with using AI for automating print production.

What will AI change? Personalisation, devices, and monetisation

Personalisation: ⁠“The killer app for AI” would be one that gets the user further into products that they are already subscribed to, according to The Atlantic’s Thompson. 

What would be most valuable to the individual and the publication would be using data to create an element of surprise and serendipity for the user, he said, adding, “if we could have better information, that they have 30 minutes and they are interested in these things and they like to be surprised 30% of the time, and if we could feed them information according to the window of time and the level of curiosity they have, in a better way, without losing the serendipity that we have right now.”

Devices: The entire information ecosystem is changing, and if your news is not on wearables, you may be left behind. 

Der Spiegel CEO Stefan Ottlitz spoke about how he expects devices such as Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses to include an audio component as well — or how earbuds will include a visual component as well — and this will increasingly be how news consumers get their information. (Indeed, Google announced exactly this.) 

We will no longer be restricted to screens in our palms or on our laps. News will be everywhere, and we have to be ready for the opportunity.

“AI will be in every UI,” Ottlitz pointed out. 

AI has made it easy for us to reach new audiences through these devices. Text to audio or text to video, as well as AI-powered news playlists, are commonplace now. Der Spiegel is using AI for tailored offers and targeting, multimodal content production, optimising product components, efficiency in investigative journalism, training tools for the newsroom and product innovation.

“In the end, it’s not about cheaper content,” Ottlitz said. Instead, he said, it’s about good journalism, an excellent user experience, ensuring your content is as liquid and easily transferable to other formats as possible, and about preparing for the end of the open internet.

Monetisation: Many news organisations are using GenAI for summarisation to provide value to readers who are pressed for time. The most common use case is to put a few bullet points at the top of an article or to offer the reader something to click on so they can see the content in a few bullet points.

Britain’s Independent decided to do something different: They not only launched summaries but also created a new brand for these summaries — and monetised them. The brand is called Bulletin, and its tagline clearly states the value proposition: “News for seriously busy people.”

Users can read the news in a few bullet points, watch a video for each story, or watch a social-first video that pulls together key headlines of the day. The brand is sponsored by WeAre8, a social media platform that pays users to watch ads and lets them donate some money to charity.

Also interesting: The Independent also picked a hybrid model when it came to building versus buying.

“There is an alternative to build or buy,” said The Independent’s Executive director of Innovation James Martin, adding:

“You don’t need to be the first to do everything.”

Worthwhile links

• GenAI and staffing: Axel Springer’s Business Insider is cutting 21% of its staff, citing AI.
• GenAI and staffing II: Also Axel Springer: Politico’s union says the AI terms in their contract have been violated.
• GenAI and efficiencies: Klarna’s CEO says AI helped the company shrink its workforce by 40% and its revenue per employee soared to nearly US$1 million.
• GenAI and accuracy: A lesson on how to not use AI for content: The Chicago Sun-Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer published a syndicated summer book list that includes made-up books by famous authors, created by a unit of Hearst Newspapers (h/t Laura Bowers).
• AI and Pulitzer Prizes: Here’s how four news organisations created top-notch journalism using AI.
• GenAI and deals: The New York Times and Amazon announce an AI licensing deal.
• GenAI and models: Anthropic’s Claude does what it takes to save itself, including blackmail.
• GenAI and browsers: Enter the agentic browser that understands user intent.
• GenAI and advertising: Netflix will use GenAI in interactive mid-roll ads and pause ads.
• GenAI and search: Will Google’s AI Mode transform search? 
• GenAI and regions: If you’re not part of the dominant global culture, LLMs may not be very useful for you.
• GenAI and scams: Some chilling stuff in here.

About this newsletter

Today’s newsletter is written by Sonali Verma, based in Toronto, and lead for the INMA Generative AI Initiative. Sonali will share research, case studies, and thought leadership on the topic of generative AI and how it relates to all areas of news media.

This newsletter is a public face of the Generative AI Initiative by INMA, outlined here. E-mail Sonali at sonali.verma@inma.org or connect with her on INMA’s Slack channel with thoughts, suggestions, and questions.

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