Twipe Insights

AI’s Impact on the News Industry: An Interview with Anabelle Nicoud

23 January 2025
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In just three days, the WAN-IFRA AI Study Tour will take a select group of news media leaders around San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

Curated by Anabelle Nicoud, this tour promises a compelling lineup of speakers and exclusive site visits. Twipe also will be represented by our CEO, Danny Lein, who will share his exclusive insights in a daily vlog. Follow it here.

Working as a tech writer and having previously served as a news editor for Apple News and spearheaded the digital transformation of two major Canadian publishers, Anabelle brings a rich tech and journalistic background to the event.

We sat down with Anabelle to discuss her views on AI’s impact on the news media industry.

Thanks for chatting with us, Anabelle. I’m curious, how do you see AI impacting the future of information discovery?

I was talking to someone in San Francisco who brought up an interesting point: AI “likes” everything that seems counterintuitive to how a human interacts with a website. When we, as people, interact with a website, we tend to like visuals and animations. AI does not prioritize this. For publishers, this can be a big challenge since the content is the product. How can they package it to be taken up in AI search engines? Or do they even want to focus on getting referrals this way?

There is a much richer experience [publishers] can offer beyond what AI search can surface.

💡 74% of publishers are increasingly concerned about the rise of AI search according to the Reuters Trends and Predictions 2025.

For some content, it might work. Sometimes you just want the right answer. Like if I’m looking for a plane ticket, I don’t want an “emotional” experience. But for publishers, the emotional, or human side, of a story is what makes it interesting. Publishers are talking to humans. So, there is a much richer experience they can offer beyond what AI search can surface.

What do you see as the biggest barriers to AI’s adoption in news media organizations?

You can boil it down to two things:

  1. Lack of trust.
  2. Lack of literacy.

Generally, the digital revolution that was supposed to happen in the 2010s didn’t, or at least not very well. As a result, many publishers don’t have a lot of trust when it comes to new technologies. This may slow down some much-needed experimentation in the field of AI.

AI literacy is also something that comes to mind. To adopt AI, you need the newsroom to see the value in it. There is a lot of pressure to adopt AI, but the conversation needs to go beyond automation. We need to center more on how to transform the news experience into something different. I’m not sure this conversation is happening.

There’s a debate about whether publishers should partner or not with AI companies. Is there an under-discussed aspect of this debate that needs more attention?

I’ve had many conversations with people in tech in San Francisco who say, “This content is free on their website, it’s not behind a paywall, and so, it should be free to use”. Many publishers would disagree. Just because content is not behind a paywall doesn’t mean it’s free to use. Their content is their product: It has value.

Yet another dimension to the debate that can make the partnership worthwhile is about getting access to the tech when you’re not a tech company. Many publishers come from print backgrounds and don’t necessarily have the resources, knowledge, or capacity to have data scientists or developers on payroll to build these advanced AI systems.

That’s where good deals with AI companies could be valuable. However, even if there is a deal, it might be a good deal today, but is it still going to be interesting for them in five or ten years?

The WAN-IFRA AI Study Tour is coming up next week and you’ve got an amazing lineup. Is there any aspect of the tour that’s got you particularly excited?

Several things have me excited!

To start, there’s the whole editorial track, so hearing from publishers directly. Meeting with HEARST and the San Francisco Chronicle stands out because they’re quite ambitious with their innovations.

Of course, I’m also excited to meet with AI players like OpenAI because they keep on releasing new features. We’ll also discuss the whole content and licensing debate by meeting with startups like ProRata.ai, ScalePost, and Tollbit. Their products are both interesting from a user and publisher perspective.

I’m not naming everyone, but every speaker is very interesting!

Before closing, we talked a lot about AI, but I want to touch on one final topic that’s high on media leaders’ minds: the decline of print. Is there a future for print?  

I want to say yes because I think many people are attached to it. Maybe publishers will move more into creating exclusive print products—like an object that you want to buy and that you’re going to keep—that are published less frequently. Something that’s closer to a book than a magazine.

That said, I can’t remember the last time I bought a print edition. I still read edition products because I like their cohesive editorial vision. Take the New York Times or The New Yorker: There’s a mindset and a way of thinking behind how the issue is built. I think this is still important.

Read more about why editions are great habit-forming products.

As a way to drive revenue, I honestly don’t really know if there is a future for print. That may be okay too. When I worked with La Presse, they stopped its print edition, focusing entirely on providing an iPad edition. Everyone thought that they would lose their place in Quebec society. In fact, the readership increased.

Of course, La Presse’s story worked perfectly well for Quebec at that moment in time, but I think there are new models to be invented. Digital just opens up so many opportunities.

La Presse VP of Digital Products, Jean-Marc de Jonghe, speaking at the Twipe Digital Growth Summit.

Read our interview with Jean-Marc de Jonghe on La Presse’s digital transition.

Thanks for your insights, Anabelle. Is there anything you want to add to our conversation?

To end it off, I’ll just say that in the past two years, there’s been a lot of experimentation in the media with AI. Now, we’re going to see what works and what’s the most common use. I feel like we’re moving past chatbots, and I’m excited about that. But I feel like we’re also still a bit in the blind in many aspects. It’s certainly an exciting time.

This interview was edited for clarity. A special thanks to Anabelle for taking the time to chat with us.

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