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While I focus on Technology, Innovation, and Publishing, because I have a platform, I also flag items that I think are important. I also try to include some resources & opportunities. Please let me know what you think.

Technology

Newsweek is building an AI Mode-like experience to customize homepages for readers

The goal is to create a more conversational, AI-driven homepage that will function more like a utility for users, boosting time spent on-site and helping counter the drop in search referrals. The homepage will be designed to be customized to each user, not just those logged into the site. Newsweek’s AI assistant will be front and center — allowing users to ask questions, with suggested prompts to ask about the news of the day or specific information about certain topics.

https://digiday.com/media/newsweek-is-building-an-ai-mode-like-experience-to-customize-homepages-for-readers/

Axel Springer Taps AI for ‘Quick News’ Insider

Business Insider has begun a month-long pilot program using a customer GPT to publish quick news stories

https://talkingbiznews.com/media-news/business-insider-launching-ai-pilot-for-quick-news-stories/

We would sell books by AI, says Waterstones boss

HT @publishingtrend James Daunt (Owner of Waterstones and Barnes & Noble) said Waterstones would stock books created using AI, as long as they were clearly labelled, and if customers wanted them. However, he personally did not expect that to happen.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvdkw4xgewo

Google is experimentally replacing news headlines with AI clickbait nonsense

Google’s new experiment has produced misleading headlines with little disclosure that AI is rewriting them.

https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/835839/google-discover-ai-headlines-clickbait-nonsense

Tribune Sues Perplexity AI Over Infringement

The Chicago Tribune has alleged that Perplexity AI is unlawfully profiting from the newspaper’s content. “The Perplexity business model is based on the theft of journalism created by real live journalists.”

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/411168/chicago-tribune-sues-perplexity-for-alleged-copy.html

America’s Polarization Has Become the World’s Side Hustle

HT @benedictevans Following last week’s reveal that a lot of deliberately divisive MAGA accounts on Twitter are not actually based in US, turns out a lot are entrepreneurs chasing revenue shares.

https://www.404media.co/americas-polarization-has-become-the-worlds-side-hustle/

Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism’s AI Era

HT @benedictevans Since ChatGPT was released there’s a demarcation line after which you can no longer assume a sentence has been produced by a human.

https://thelocal.to/investigating-scam-journalism-ai/

OpenAI loses fight to keep ChatGPT logs secret in copyright case

A US federal judge rules that OpenAI must produce 20M anonymized ChatGPT user logs in the copyright lawsuit brought by the New York Times and other news outlets

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/openai-loses-fight-keep-chatgpt-logs-secret-copyright-case-2025-12-03/

What AI doesn’t know: we could be creating a global ‘knowledge collapse’

As GenAI becomes the primary way to find information, local and traditional wisdom is being lost. And we are only beginning to realize what we’re missing.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/nov/18/what-ai-doesnt-know-global-knowledge-collapse

AI has helped break news ecosystem, but could also fix it – says agency boss

HT @BoSacks NewsX is a bid to make on the ground reporting pay again.

https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/wires_and_agencies/ai-has-helped-break-news-ecosystem-but-could-also-fix-it-says-agency-boss/

ChatGPT shopping research builds you a buyer’s guide using AI

https://www.theverge.com/news/828326/chatgpt-shopping-research-chatgpt-buyers-guide

Amazon Releases AI Agents It Says Can Work for Days at a Time 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-releases-ai-agents-it-says-can-work-for-days-at-a-time-79c82902

Bain Survey: AI Moves from Pilots to Production

AI is becoming more important to companies: 74% say it’s a top-3 strategic priority. Execs say 80% of gen AI use cases met/exceeded expectations, but only 23% can tie initiatives to new revenue or lower costs.

https://www.bain.com/insights/executive-survey-ai-moves-from-pilots-to-production/

HeyGen: AI Video Tool for Book Promotion

It’s fast and effective, but is it too “fake” for authors to use? Via @FauziaBurke

https://fauziaburke.substack.com/p/heygen-ai-video-tool-for-book-promotion

Former MrBeast content strategist is building an AI tool for creator ideation and analytics

Palo is an AI-powered platform that analyzes a creator’s videos, identifies what works, and generates tailored ideas, scripts, and storyboards.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/24/former-mrbeast-content-strategist-is-building-an-ai-tool-for-creator-ideation-and-analytics/

Speechify adds voice typing + AI voice assistant to its Chrome extension

Speechify, known for converting articles, PDFs, & documents into audio, expanding Chrome extension w voice typing & conversational browser-based AI assistant.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/25/speechify-adds-voice-typing-and-voice-assistant-to-its-chrome-extension/

Suno Creates an Entire Spotify Catalog’s Worth of Music Every Two Weeks, Says Investor Pitch Deck for $250M Fundraise

HT @benedictevans Every two weeks, users on the AI music platform Suno create as much music as what is currently available on Spotify. Those users are primarily male, aged 25-34, and spend an average of 20 minutes creating the some 7 million songs produced on the platform daily. Suno is currently in the middle of a number of lawsuits concerning the data on which it trains its model. Most significantly is the copyright infringement lawsuit filed by the three major music companies, Sony, Universal and Warner, against Suno for $500 million, claiming widespread copyright infringement of their sound recordings “at an almost unimaginable scale” to train its model.

https://www.billboard.com/pro/suno-creates-spotify-catalog-music-two-weeks-pitch-deck/

European Parliament backs 16+ age rule for social media

The European Parliament called for a Europe-wide minimum threshold of 16 for minors to access social media without their parents’ consent. Parliament members also want the EU to hold tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk personally liable should their platforms consistently violate the EU’s provisions on protecting minors online — a suggested provision that was added by Hungarian center-right member Dóra Dávid, who previously worked for Meta.

https://www.politico.eu/article/european-parliament-backs-minimum-age-of-16-for-social-media/

Google’s ‘Nested Learning’ paradigm could solve AI’s memory & continual learning problem

It views models as smaller, nested optimization problems to mitigate/avoid catastrophic forgetting, where learning new tasks sacrifices proficiency on old tasks.

https://venturebeat.com/ai/googles-nested-learning-paradigm-could-solve-ais-memory-and-continual

AI, networks and Mechanical Turks

Any consumer internet system with critical mass becomes, in part, a Mechanical Turk. It looks at what the users do and draws conclusions from that. Amazon knows that if you bought X, you might buy Y, because it’s seen what lots of people buy and saw that if they buy X, they’re likely to buy Y. Google’s dominance of search is based in part on seeing what people search for, and what they click on and what they search for next. The limitation of this, though, is that none of these systems really know why you watched those, or bought those, or looked at those, and they don’t really know what those things are. But an LLM is a step change in automated understanding of both what and why. The model can look at those words, images, videos and products, and all that metadata, and connect them to patterns that have some kind of correlation. Today, Amazon will know that if you buy packing tape, you might want bubble wrap. It should know that if you buy those, you might also want lightbulbs and maybe smoke detectors, because you’re moving. But an LLM might know to show you an ad for home insurance and broadband, things you probably couldn’t infer from Amazon’s purchasing data.

https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2025/11/23/ai-networks-and-mechanical-turks

Kicking Robots: Humanoids and the tech-­industry hype machine

A fascinating look at our robot future.

https://harpers.org/archive/2025/12/kicking-robots-james-vincent-humanoids/

This startup bucked mainstream robotics training methods to teach a robot how to load the dishes

Sunday Robotics emerged from stealth to demonstrate Memo, a fully autonomous home robot on wheels that can complete household tasks.

https://www.businessinsider.com/sunday-robotics-home-robot-training-hands-loading-dishwasher-2025-11

US schools face big price swings for basics under Amazon’s ‘dynamic pricing’, report claims

HT @publishingtrend A school district in Denver, would have saved $1m in 2023. Denver public schools, which spent $5.7M w Amazon that yr, could have saved 17%.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/04/us-schools-amazon-algorithmic-pricing

Bending Spoons Is Adding Eventbrite to Its Acquisition Portfolio

Bending Spoons (based in Milan, Italy) acquiring Eventbrite. They bought AOL in Oct, Vimeo in Sep, and already owned Evernote, Brightcove, komoot, Meetup, Remini, StreamYard, and WeTransfer.

https://www.inc.com/ava-levinson/eventbrite-just-announced-its-acquisition-agreement/91273082

Publishing & Media

Spotify Wrapped: Audio Books Edition

HT @publishingtrend For the first year, Spotify is including audiobooks as part of its annual Wrapped package, with recent and newly announced adaptations making up the bulk of 2025’s top picks.

https://www.indiewire.com/news/business/2025-book-to-screen-adaptations-audiobooks-spotify-1235163801/

Reaching audiences in age of AI disruption

HT @BoSacks Produce journalism worth paying for, price it to reflect its value, and build direct relationships w readers. In a time of rapid upheaval, these principles may be the industry’s most reliable compass.

https://www.inma.org/blogs/reader-revenue/post.cfm/reaching-audiences-in-age-of-ai-disruption

Wall Street Journal and Washington Post tech chiefs on personalization for publishers

HT @BoSacks Insights from Arc XP, Wall Street Journal, Guardian and BBC execs on Web 3.0.

https://pressgazette.co.uk/north-america/personalisation-for-publishers/

Independent French media outlets are creating a content distribution platform to fight against the web giants

HT @BoSacks 8 independent French media outlets formed an alliance and launched a joint subscription platform.

https://thefix.media/2025/11/20/independent-french-media-outlets-are-creating-a-content-distribution-platform-to-fight-against-the-web-giants/

EUDR amended to remove all printed products from regulations

European Parliament approved an amendment to EU Deforestation Regulations (EUDR) to remove all printed products from the scope of the regulations, including books, journals, newspapers and magazines.

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/eudr-amended-to-remove-all-printed-products-from-regulations

Why Print Never Died

HT @publishingtrend. Via @JaneFriedman.

https://janefriedman.com/why-print-never-died/

Los Angeles Times Launches a Clothing Line

The Los Angeles Times has quietly debuted a luxury streetwear collaboration, with shirts selling for $1,078.

https://www.sfgate.com/la/article/la-times-asks-employees-buy-expensive-shirts-21219585.php

U.S. reinstates all canceled library grants after court order

Some good news! The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) said it had reinstated all federal grants. “This action supersedes any prior notices which may have been received related to grant termination.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2025/12/04/trump-library-grants-lawsuit-imls/

Middle-schoolers should be reading novels

The new curriculum at a middle school removes all full-length novels from the 8th grade curriculum. Previously, the 8th graders read challenging and thoughtful novels like To Kill a Mockingbird and A Raisin in the Sun. The rationale for this change is that the old curriculum was cobbled together through trial and error by the English teachers and the new curriculum, which focuses on short passages, will better prepare the students for high school. But “reading full novels has real and important benefits” in middle school and beyond.

https://51st.news/opinion-dcps-middle-schoolers-should-be-reading-novels/

Resources & Opportunities

WMG Member Social with WMG Co-Presidents

12/16 6:30-7:30 p.m. ET. WMG members only. FREE (Zoom)

Join WMG Co-Presidents Jodi Brockington and Jane Wesman for a virtual Member Social, a community-building celebration for all WMG members. This isn’t just another Zoom meeting; it’s a chance to pause, connect, and invest in your professional community.

https://womensmediagroup.org/event-6429132

Black Musical Theater History Tour & Brunch with Kathy Sandler

1/10 11am. WMG Members Only.

Join me for an intimate cultural social: a guided exhibition tour followed by a relaxed brunch with fellow WMG members. Attendees will meet at the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center for a free, staff-led tour of Syncopated Stages: Black Disruptions to the Great White Way! This new exhibition shines a light on the powerful impact of Black artists, productions, and theaters—from 19th-century trailblazers to today’s boundary-pushing storytellers who continue to shape musical theater. After the tour, we’ll head to Rosa Mexicano for brunch & conversation.

https://womensmediagroup.org/event-6458663

The Art of Being Irreplaceable: Creativity in the Age of AI

1/22, 12:00-1:00 p.m. ET. Free for WMG members; $15 for non-members (Zoom)

Are you afraid that AI is going to take your job? Yes—we all are! Yet one truth remains: artificial intelligence can mimic style, but it can’t replicate soul. Join Women’s Media Group for a thought-provoking session with award-winning author Jane K. Cleland, whose new book, Beat the Bots: A Writer’s Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Age of AI, offers a roadmap for writers determined to stay both relevant and inspired. Guided by acclaimed publishing expert Jane Friedman, Cleland will share practical exercises to nurture imagination, spark original thinking, and resist creative conformity. Expect practical creativity boosters, encouragement to take risks, and a renewed sense of purpose in your storytelling journey. It’s not about resisting technology—it’s about harnessing what only humans can do.

https://womensmediagroup.org/event-6429044

WMG Comedy Night: Smart Laughs, Big Energy

1/27 6pm (VIP Reception) | 7:15 pm General Admission

Get ready for a night of fearless, full-throttle comedy with Women’s Media Group, celebrating women who rule the mic and the moment. Featuring Sarah Cooper, Ophira Eisenberg, Phoebe Robinson, and Youngmi Mayer — plus more comedians to be announced — this live show brings together some of the funniest and most fearless voices in entertainment. Bring friends, bring your sense of humor, and get ready to laugh, connect, and unwind with WMG. Reserve your spot today — general admission seats will go fast!

https://womensmediagroup.org/event-6425404

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