Ep. 23 – Navigating the AI Revolution in Journalism

The Upgrade: Beyond the Hype

Nick Petrie has spent his career in journalism working to help news organizations like The Times and Sunday Times and Reuters figure out the relationship between newsrooms and product development as well as building reader-focused subscription businesses. In this week’s episode of The Upgrade, host Peter Bittner talked with Nick about how generative AI can help media organizations attract and maintain readers in an environment where the internet has become saturated with content.

Show Notes:

(1:36) How Reuters has incorporated AI into their media strategy

(5:58) Nick’s take on how generative AI is shaking up the media industry

(7:47) Potential problems that can arise when publications try to use AI

(10:12) Why it has been difficult to design a service that acts like a version of Spotify for news

(11:12) Potential ways that generative AI can increase a publication’s readership

(14:22) Improvements in AI that can shape the media industry’s evolution

(16:44) The dead internet theory

(19:18) How online publishers can succeed as SEO transforms

(22:59) The potential for data-driven newsrooms to benefit from AI

Learn more about Nick Petrie

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Connect on LinkedIn with Peter Bittner, The Upgrade’s founder and CEO

Special thanks to Mitch Walker for helping to design the podcast’s artwork