I was in Bogotá recently running an AI workshop, and, as is often the case, the conversation quickly moved beyond models and tools to something much more fundamental: design. Specifically, how people actually experience news today.

Consumers have become deeply accustomed to format-specific apps. TikTok and YouTube for video. Spotify or Apple Podcasts for audio. Messaging apps for conversation. Each format has its own native rhythm, interaction patterns, and expectations.

News organisations, by contrast, try to offer everything in one place. Articles, video, audio, explainers, alerts, live blogs, AI summaries, and now answer engines. The ambition is correct — rich, flexible content that meets users wherever they are. But the execution is hard. Very hard.

The challenge is no longer what to offer but how to present all of this without overwhelming people or creating a cluttered, confusing experience.

Something I saw at El Tiempo really stood out. Juan Carlos Agudelo, CTO at El Tiempo, walked me through their new mobile app, and one feature in particular felt like a quietly elegant solution to this problem.

They’ve built what they call a “three-minute update.” It’s a vertical, swipe-based experience that surfaces the 10 most relevant stories, twice a day. The interaction is simple and familiar — swipe to move through stories — but what’s clever is how much functionality is layered in without it feeling heavy.

Alongside this, users can access summarised versions of each story, making it easy to shift between listening, scanning, and reading, depending on context.

Commuting, cooking, or just catching up quickly — the experience adapts to the moment. Audio is integrated seamlessly. As you swipe, the audio automatically progresses, allowing users to listen passively while still maintaining a sense of structure and flow. (They also have a separate audio playlist, which can either play these summaries or the full audio, but the three-minute section chooses the summaries.) 

Then there’s the answer engine.

The small bot icon you see in the screenshots above gives users access to El Tiempo’s AI-powered chatbot. Behind the scenes, it’s doing something substantial: analysing queries, searching articles published since 2017, ranking relevance, and using a large language model to generate responses. 

But from the user’s perspective, none of that complexity is front and centre.

The entire experience stays clean and intuitive.

What struck me most is that this isn’t about adding yet another feature. It’s about thoughtful orchestration. Headlines, swipe, audio, summaries, and conversational AI all coexist — but they don’t compete for attention. The design does the hard work so the user doesn’t have to.

And it’s working. All their metrics are up: MAU +31%, subs +128%, average time spent +13%, and audio is increasing at a dramatic rate of around 200%.

As news organisations race to integrate AI capabilities into their products, this feels like an important reminder. The future isn’t just about powerful models or smarter systems. It’s about designing experiences that respect users’ time, attention, and cognitive load. When done well, it’s rewarded. 

El Tiempo’s approach shows it is possible to bring multiple formats and AI-driven functionality together — without losing clarity or trust — if design leads the way.

If you’re interested, El Tiempo has shared a short English presentation walking through these updates, which is well worth a look.

If you’d like to subscribe to my bi-weekly newsletter, INMA members can do so here.

Banner art: Adobe Stock By Chaosamran_Studio.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .