😺 The future of media (with AI)

PLUS: 56% of Neuron readers would read AI news?!

Welcome, humans.

Samsung's operating profits skyrocketed by 930% thanks to a surge in demand for its servers, chips, and storage solutions that fuel AI applications. It appears the only items topping AI chips in popularity these days are pickleball and Ozempic.

Seems like AI chips, Ozempic, and pickleball are all it takes to keep the world spinning, right?

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

8 more news companies are suing OpenAI/Microsoft.
OpenAI will license The Financial Times’ news archive to train its models.
56% of Neuron readers say they’d read news that’s been summarized by an AI chatbot.
Apple has poached at least 36 AI experts from Google since 2018.

On Tuesday’s podcast: Apple x OpenAI, Meta’s business model with AI, and The Verge’s state of AI survey (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube).

AI won’t kill news, it’ll simply reformat it

Perplexity via The Verge

Let’s say that, in theory, you want to search for information on the latest polls between Biden and Trump.

Previously, you'd hop on over to Google → type your question → pick a preferred news site → and sift through the article for the newest poll results.

Now, in the AI era, chatbots like Perplexity, Copilot, Grok, and You.com can scan those same sources and summarize the latest polling data for you, saving you a whole 60 seconds.

And guess what? People are digging this new approach:

61% of GenZ and 53% of Millennials are using AI tools in place of traditional search engines like Google for researching topics.
- As a result, AI search engines like Perplexity are witnessing incredible growth in users and revenue ($20M ARR, to be exact).
In our latest poll, 56% of Neuron readers said they'd read news summarized by an AI chatbot.

So, what does this mean for news?

Firstly, it means that news outlets are really friggin scared of AI companies gobbling up all their news content and delivering it in a more appetizing format via chatbots.

Their responses have been to:

1. Sue—major players like The NYT have launched hefty lawsuits against OpenAI/Microsoft for copyright infringement. Just yesterday, 8 more daily newspapers took legal action against OpenAI/Microsoft for using their articles to power ChatGPT and Bing.

“Executives at firms such as CNN, Dotdash Meredith owner IAC and The Washington Post worry that allowing the use of their content to train large language models and related products could be a short-term win and a long-term loss for them: Once the models are trained, will the tech firms need the media outlets any more?”

The Information

2. Block AI scrapers—roughly 90% of top news outlets have blocked AI companies from scraping their content data.

3. Cut deals with Big Tech.

Last July, OpenAI forged a partnership with The Associated Press to license its news content for an undisclosed amount.
In December, OpenAI and Axel Springer announced a deal to bring news content from sources like Business Insider to ChatGPT.
Just this Monday, The Financial Times clinched a deal with OpenAI to use its exclusive news content to train OpenAI’s models.

Why it matters: AI won’t kill quick news consumption as much as it’ll reformat it. The question of who ultimately cashes in—AI models or news outlets—is TBD.

We’re optimists. In a world full of AI-generated, generic articles and lackluster AI summaries, we see a significant chance for media companies to make their mark by offering unique content that showcases genuine expertise, human insight, and credible sources.

That’s our mission at The Neuron, at least!

Related reading: Jim VandeHei on AI-Proofing the News and Ignoring ‘Twitter Nerds’ (link).

FROM OUR PARTNERS

Have an AI idea but don’t know how to build it?

Hire world-class AI experts from Harvard, Stanford and MIT.

If you know AI should be a part of your business but don’t know how to implement it, you need AE Studio.

Their team is stacked with elite software creators who can turn any AI concept into reality for your business—think automated reports, NLP, custom chatbots, and beyond.

The secret to their success is treating your project as if it were their own startup.

Tell AE Studio about your business challenge today. They’ll listen to you, take the time to “get” it, and do the work you need to get done.

Around the Horn.

Pete went on The Next Wave to chat about AI’s impact on the future of creativity and the workplace.
OpenAI now lets every user choose not to have their chats help train ChatGPT.
Apple has poached at least 36 AI experts from Google since 2018.
Amazon made its AI assistant Q available for all AWS customers (see how it works here).
A new paper introduced a way for LLMs not to forget information in the middle of a long prompt.

Wednesday Wirings.

*Waiting for humans to label your data? Nawww. Nurdle lets businesses synthetically generate labeled text data from trillions of real human interactions, helping you improve your AI models. Give it a whirl here!
Augment, an AI coding assistant for developer teams, raised $227M.
Blaize, which supports AI applications that run across edge devices, raised $106M.
Parloa, a conversational AI assistant for customer support teams, raised $66M.
Safebase, which uses AI models to help customers fill out security questionnaires, raised $33M.
Nooks, which automated repetitive sales tasks, raised $22M.
Log10, which helps companies improve LLM accuracy by >50%, raised $7.2M.

*This is sponsored content. Advertise in The Neuron here.

A Cat's Commentary.

Where do you #Neuron?

Send us a picture of where you read The Neuron here (with some spicy commentary), and you might get featured next week!

Spotlight on this week’s #Neuron champ: Just imagine what that cat (bottom right) is pondering. Likely thinking, "Hey, can you scroll down already?! I’m ready for the first story!”