Reed’s view
The media business is facing a crisis brought on by artificial intelligence. Since the dawn of the internet, people have had to click links to read articles. Now, they can just ask a chatbot what’s going on in the world.
Even if people like Cloudflare co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince have been laudably trying to find a way for publishers to charge the bots, the current business model of internet publishing is under threat.
But the advent of AI and the related shakeup also brings a huge opportunity for entrepreneurship in local and niche publishing.
During the last tech era, we had Substack, which allowed some traditional journalists to strike out on their own and make a living by charging loyal followers for content. Some success stories in tech media include Casey Newton, Eric Newcomer, and Alex Kantrowitz.
AI moves us past the era of platforms and into something new and, in many ways, better. Platforms often have a reward structure that leads to homogeneity. But AI will reduce almost every barrier to media creation, negating the need for a one-size-fits-all platform. And what applies to a tech reporter in the Valley could also apply to a small-town newspaper reporter left behind by the tech revolution that decimated the industry.
AI tools can cut the costs of launching a publication to close to zero. And it can also be used to figure out growth strategies and business models. In one town, events might be a good revenue model. In another, subscriptions or corporate sponsorships might work. Video and other media can be tacked on with minimal investment.
The best-case scenario is that AI enables high-quality media startups to pop up all over the country and the world in underserved niches, and allows those of us who are already underway to spend our time and money doing what AI can’t do: gathering information that isn’t online and connecting with an audience. The worst-case scenario is that “real journalists” ignore the opportunities, and powerful new AI tools are used by entities less committed to accurate information.
What happens next could have a meaningful impact on the health of democracy.
Notable
- The real disruptive potential of AI in media may lie in reshaping how news is consumed and understood, fostering deeper engagement by tailoring content and facilitating personalized meaning-making, Joshua Rothman writes in the New Yorker.
- Regulation of AI will come sooner rather than later, Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait predicts.