News/Publishing
Medical AI startup Freed reaches 20K users saving 2-3 hours daily
Freed AI, a San Francisco-based medical transcription startup, has reached 20,000 paying clinician users who are each saving 2-3 hours daily on documentation tasks. The milestone comes as intensifying competition emerges in the AI medical scribe market, with Doximity, a publicly traded physician networking company, launching a free competing product and other well-funded rivals entering the space. What you should know: Freed's AI-powered medical scribe automatically transcribes doctor-patient conversations and generates clinical notes tailored to each physician's workflow preferences. The platform processes nearly 3 million patient visits per month across more than 1,000 small healthcare organizations. Co-founded in 2022 by...
read Jul 22, 2025Follow-through failures: Google’s AI overviews cut website clicks by 50%, Pew study finds
A new Pew Research Center study confirms what many website owners suspected: Google's AI Overviews are significantly reducing clicks to other websites, with searches featuring AI summaries generating nearly half the click-through rates of traditional search results. The findings challenge Google's repeated claims that AI Overviews don't harm web traffic, providing concrete evidence of how artificial intelligence is reshaping information consumption and potentially starving content creators of visitors. The numbers: The Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan research organization, analyzed data from 900 users and found stark differences in click behavior between traditional and AI-enhanced search results. Searches without AI Overviews...
read Jul 17, 2025Google’s new AI news summaries threaten publisher traffic
Google has launched a new AI feature that automatically summarizes trending news stories within its mobile search apps, displaying tiny publisher logos while discouraging users from clicking through to original articles. This development threatens to further devastate an already struggling journalism industry that has seen significant traffic declines from Google's previous AI initiatives, potentially accelerating what experts call "Google Zero"—a future where the search giant stops sending traffic to news sites entirely. The big picture: Google's AI summaries represent the latest escalation in the tech giant's systematic reduction of referral traffic to news publishers, following the controversial rollout of AI...
read Jul 16, 2025Brilliant: AI chatbots reconstruct paywalled news content from social media fragments
Artificial intelligence chatbots are quietly reshaping how people access premium news content, creating a new dynamic that affects both readers and publishers. When users ask ChatGPT or similar AI tools to summarize articles from paywalled publications, they often receive surprisingly accurate responses—despite the AI never actually accessing the original content directly. This phenomenon isn't the result of sophisticated hacking or direct paywall circumvention. Instead, AI chatbots employ a more subtle approach: they reconstruct article summaries by piecing together fragments from social media posts, archived snippets, and online discussions. The result is often a coherent summary that captures the essence of...
read Jul 15, 2025$159 AI voice recorder transforms note-taking with GPT-4o transcription
Jack Wallen, a contributing writer at ZDNET, has reviewed the Plaud Note, a $159 AI-powered voice recorder that combines hardware and software to transcribe and summarize voice recordings. The device transforms traditional voice note-taking by automatically syncing recordings to a mobile app that uses GPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet to generate transcriptions and AI-powered summaries, though these features require a separate paid subscription. What you should know: The Plaud Note is a credit card-sized recording device that offers one-press recording with advanced AI capabilities for transcription and summarization. The device costs $159 and works with both Android and iOS apps,...
read Jul 15, 2025Google expands NotebookLM with content from The Economist and The Atlantic
Google has expanded NotebookLM to include featured notebooks from major publishers including The Economist and The Atlantic, along with content from scientists, nonprofits, and authors covering topics from Shakespeare to parenting advice. The collaboration arrives amid deep divisions in the publishing industry over AI partnerships, with some publishers choosing licensing deals while others pursue litigation against AI companies. What you should know: The new featured notebooks offer curated content from established publishers and experts across multiple domains. The Economist's notebook features articles from "The World Ahead 2025," their annual special issue examining key trends and events shaping the year. The...
read Jul 15, 2025Writing’s on the wall: Microsoft study reveals writers, translators face highest AI disruption risk
Microsoft Research recently published findings that cut through the speculation surrounding AI's impact on employment by analyzing real workplace behavior. Rather than relying on theoretical projections, researchers examined 200,000 actual conversations between workers and Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant integrated into workplace productivity tools, to understand how artificial intelligence is currently being deployed across different professions. The study reveals a stark divide in the job market: roles centered on information processing and communication face significant disruption, while positions requiring physical presence and human interaction remain largely protected. This data-driven approach provides the clearest picture yet of which careers are most...
read Jul 15, 2025Google tests multi-source AI summaries in Discover feed
Google Discover is testing AI-generated story summaries that aggregate content from multiple sources, similar to how AI Overviews appear in search results. The feature represents Google's latest expansion of AI capabilities across its services, potentially changing how users consume news and information within the Discover feed. What you should know: The AI summaries replace traditional publication logos with icons from multiple sources and use "Trending" labels to distinguish them from regular articles. These summaries pull information from various publications and online resources, presenting it as three lines of AI-generated text with a "See more" option for additional content. The main...
read Jul 7, 2025Watch out, Hallmark, Google’s Gemini AI writes personal birthday letters with user data
Google's AI assistant Gemini has demonstrated an unprecedented ability to write personalized content by leveraging the company's vast data ecosystem, as evidenced by its creation of a remarkably authentic birthday letter that drew from years of personal information stored across Google's services. This development signals Google's emerging advantage in the race to build hyper-personalized AI assistants, positioning the company to potentially leapfrog competitors like OpenAI by utilizing decades of user data already within its ecosystem. What happened: A writer discovered that Gemini could craft an unnervingly personal birthday letter using only a nine-word prompt containing her friend's name and age....
read Jun 23, 2025Not taking the bait: LinkedIn’s AI writing tool flops as professionals fear reputation damage
LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky revealed that the platform's AI-powered writing assistant for posts has proven less popular than expected, attributing the lukewarm reception to users' concerns about maintaining their professional reputation. The insight highlights how career-focused social platforms face unique challenges in AI adoption, as professionals prioritize authentic content over AI-generated efficiency when their reputation is at stake. What they're saying: Roslansky explained the tool's limited appeal during a Bloomberg interview, emphasizing the professional stakes involved. "We have an ability where you write a post on LinkedIn," Roslansky said. "We are not going to write it for you from scratch,...
read Jun 18, 2025J’accuse: Authors post TikTok videos to prove their books aren’t AI-generated
Authors across TikTok are posting videos of their writing processes to combat accusations of using AI to generate their books, with bestselling author Victoria Aveyard leading the charge by sharing footage of herself editing a 1,000-page manuscript. This digital defense movement reflects growing tensions in the publishing industry as writers struggle to distinguish human-created work from AI-generated content amid an influx of self-published authors and concerns about artificial intelligence infiltrating traditional publishing deals. What you should know: High-profile authors are using social media to prove their work is human-generated after facing AI accusations from readers and fellow writers. Victoria Aveyard,...
read Jun 17, 2025Youbooks launches lifetime AI book generator for $49, down from $540
Youbooks has launched a lifetime subscription offer for its AI-powered nonfiction book generator at $49, down from the regular price of $540. The platform combines multiple leading AI models to help users create comprehensive nonfiction works of up to 300,000 words, targeting entrepreneurs, content creators, and industry experts looking to transform their expertise into published books. What you should know: Youbooks integrates ChatGPT, Gemini, Llama, and Claude AI models to generate long-form nonfiction content based on user-provided notes, research, and writing style preferences. Users can upload their own documents or writing samples to help the AI learn their voice and...
read Jun 16, 2025Perplexity expands publisher program to 100+ media partners with revenue sharing
Perplexity has expanded its Publishers Program to include over 100 media partners, up from the original 10 when it launched about a year ago. The program compensates news outlets and publishers for content used to train AI models and generate responses, addressing growing concerns about fair compensation for content creators in the AI era. What you should know: The program has grown exponentially and now includes major publications like TIME, Der Spiegel, Fortune, and The Texas Tribune. Publishers receive both attribution through citations and direct revenue sharing based on how often their content is referenced in user queries. "We would...
read Jun 12, 2025Wikipedia pauses AI summaries after editors call them threat to credibility
Wikipedia has paused its AI-generated summary trial after just two days following harsh criticism from the platform's volunteer editors. The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that runs Wikipedia, launched the feature on June 2 for 10% of mobile users, but editor backlash over accuracy and credibility concerns forced an immediate halt to what was planned as a two-week experiment. What you should know: The AI summaries appeared at the top of Wikipedia articles with yellow "unverified" labels, generated by Cohere Labs' open-weight Aya model. Users had to tap to expand and read the summaries, which were only visible to those with...
read Jun 11, 2025Clickbait glow up? Taboola launches AI chatbot on top news websites to boost trusted journalism
Taboola has launched DeeperDive, an AI chatbot that will appear on USA Today and The Independent websites to answer reader questions using information from "trusted journalists." The move represents a significant evolution for the company, which is best known for serving clickbait-style advertisements beneath online articles, as it positions itself in the growing market for AI-powered content engagement tools. What you should know: DeeperDive integrates directly into publisher websites and allows readers to ask questions about current events and article content. A demo shows the search bar appearing at the top of USA Today's homepage with auto-generated prompts like "How...
read Jun 5, 2025Washington Post develops “Ember” AI coach to assist amateur writers
The Washington Post is exploring an AI-powered pathway for amateur writers to contribute opinion content, marking a significant shift in how traditional media outlets might incorporate both artificial intelligence and citizen journalism. This initiative, known internally as "Ripple," represents an expansion beyond traditional opinion sections and reflects changing dynamics in how news organizations engage with diverse voices while leveraging new technologies. The big picture: The Washington Post is developing an AI writing coach called Ember that would help non-professional writers create opinion columns for publication on the newspaper's platforms. The tool reportedly includes features like a "story strength" tracker and...
read Jun 4, 2025Asimov’s 1940 insights shape our approach to AI coexistence in 2025
Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, introduced in his 1940 short story "Strange Playfellow," offer a foundational framework for ethical AI that remains relevant amid today's accelerating artificial intelligence development. Unlike his sci-fi contemporaries who portrayed robots as existential threats, Asimov pioneered a more nuanced approach by imagining machines designed with inherent safety constraints. His vision of AI governed by simple, hierarchical rules continues to influence both technical AI alignment research and broader conversations about responsible AI development in an era where machines increasingly make consequential decisions. The original vision: Asimov's approach to robots marked a significant departure from the...
read May 31, 2025NYT strikes landmark AI licensing deal with Amazon
The New York Times has struck a historic licensing deal with Amazon for AI-related content usage, marking the first such agreement for the legacy media company despite its ongoing lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft over similar issues. This precedent-setting arrangement illustrates how traditional publishers are attempting to navigate AI advancement by creating commercial frameworks for their content rather than solely relying on litigation, potentially reshaping how media companies approach AI partnerships in the future. The big picture: The New York Times reached a multiyear agreement with Amazon to license its content for AI-related uses while maintaining active copyright infringement lawsuits...
read May 24, 2025Chicago Sun-Times and Philadelphia Inquirer both publish AI-generated fictional reading list
The Chicago Sun-Times and Philadelphia Inquirer recently published a summer reading list featuring entirely fictitious books attributed to real authors, marking another prominent case of AI hallucinations infiltrating mainstream journalism. This incident highlights the persistent challenge with generative AI systems, which can produce convincingly realistic content that appears authoritative while being completely fabricated – a particularly concerning development as these tools become more integrated into media production workflows. The big picture: A special section in two major newspapers recommended nonexistent books supposedly written by prominent authors including Isabel Allende, Min Jin Lee, and Pulitzer Prize winner Percival Everett, all generated...
read May 23, 2025European publishers rally against AI’s use of copyrighted content
European creative industries are intensifying their campaign for AI transparency and fair compensation as the EU AI Act moves toward implementation. The "Stay True to the Act, Stay True to Culture" initiative is gaining momentum across multiple countries, with publishers, musicians, and media executives demanding protection for copyright holders whose works are being used to train AI systems. This coordinated effort reflects growing concern that without proper regulation, European creative sectors could face existential threats while non-European tech companies reap the benefits of using their content without permission or payment. The big picture: Representatives from Europe's creative industries met with...
read May 22, 2025Melania Trump partners with ElevenLabs to launch AI audiobook
Melania Trump has embraced AI technology for her memoir's audiobook release, partnering with ElevenLabs to create an AI-generated version of her voice. This collaboration represents a significant intersection of celebrity publishing and artificial intelligence, potentially setting a precedent for how public figures might leverage voice synthesis technology to expand their reach across multiple languages and platforms. The big picture: Former First Lady Melania Trump has released an AI-narrated audiobook version of her memoir "Melania," using a synthetic replica of her own voice created by AI startup ElevenLabs. The $25 audiobook launched May 22 in English, with versions in Spanish, Portuguese,...
read May 21, 2025Google limits publisher options for AI Search opt-out
Google's internal documents reveal a calculated strategy to limit publisher control over how their content is used in AI search features, prioritizing Google's AI development and monetization efforts over publisher autonomy. The disclosure comes amid the ongoing US antitrust trial examining Google's online search dominance, highlighting the company's strategic advantage in AI development through its vast search data repository—an advantage that competitors like Perplexity and OpenAI cannot match. The big picture: Google deliberately avoided giving publishers meaningful choice about their content appearing in AI search features, instead offering what internal documents describe as an "illusion of choice." A newly disclosed...
read May 21, 2025AI-generated content blunder, in print, shocks Chicago newspaper journalists
The Chicago Sun-Times has ignited controversy after publishing AI-generated misinformation in a weekend special section, triggering strong pushback from the paper's own journalists. This incident highlights growing tensions within the journalism industry as media companies experiment with AI tools, raising critical questions about editorial oversight, content verification, and the potential erosion of reader trust when AI-generated content appears alongside traditional journalism. The big picture: A "summer reading list" published in the Chicago Sun-Times recommended 15 books, 10 of which were completely fabricated by AI but attributed to real authors, damaging the paper's credibility with readers. The fabricated list appeared in...
read May 21, 2025AI fuels surge in sloppy biomedical research publications
Researchers have identified a troubling trend in biomedical research where artificial intelligence tools may be fueling an explosion of low-quality papers that make misleading health claims. This development threatens to contaminate scientific literature with methodologically flawed studies that draw inappropriate conclusions from publicly available health data, creating a new challenge for maintaining scientific integrity in an era of accessible AI. The big picture: Scientists have documented a surge in formulaic research papers that appear to use AI to analyze open health data sets, particularly the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), often producing statistically unsound correlations between single variables...
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