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There’s just one month to go until Mx3 AI; a live event in London from Media Voices and Media Makers Meet. We’ll be featuring sessions on AI in local, national, consumer and B2B media, as well as discussions on innovation, developments and regulation.


How OpenAI is building a path toward AI agents

Building a GPT-based copy editor showcases their promise — but the risks ahead are real.

 

Platformer’s Casey Newton has been at OpenAI’s inaugural developer day in San Francisco. At the event, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced a suite of features for the GPT API. Top of the list was a feature that allows developers to draw on custom instructions and uploaded files to build their own version of the ChatGPT platform.

Newton was given beta access to the feature and has used it to build a copy editor for his newsletter. He explains how he had already ‘hacked’ ChatGPT to catch spelling and grammatical errors. Now, he’s asking the AI to simulate reader responses to what he’s written.

While not in anyway dismissing the ‘AI will kill us all’ conversations that have flared up recently, this is a fascinating behind the scenes look at how under-resourced publishers might be able to use AI to make them better at what they do. Newton imagines AI agents embedded into the text editor of your choice, transferring text to your CMS, drafting social media posts, publishing them, reporting on their performance. “All of this is coming,” he says.

I’m speaking at a PPA Scotland roundtable event in Glasgow at the end of the month, focusing on using AI with confidence. Find out more in the events section of our community forum.


 

Media Briefs: Yes, you can use Apple News to build first-party data

Apple doesn’t share customer data directly. But there are some clear pathways for publishers to leverage and drive first-party data capture in the app.

Adding to our regular weekly episode roster and our Conversations panel discussions, we’re introducing Media Briefs; short, sharp sponsored episodes – about 10 to 15 minutes long – with a senior executive from a vendor working with publishers to make their businesses better. In our first Media Brief, I am speaking with Kieran Delaney, CEO at Apple News specialists FlatPlan, about how publishers can make the most of the platform.


 

How to make newsletters valuable in a reader revenue model

Peter Houston interviews Maire, Head of Newsletters at The Telegraph & Michael, founder of The Edinburgh Guardian at The Audiencers’ Festival 2023

This is a write up of the panel session I had the pleasure of hosting at the Audiencers Festival last month. My favourite ‘What’s the value in newsletters?’ nugget came from Marie Bonheim, the head of newsletters at The Telegraph. She explained that if a reader subscribes to their premium product after clicking on a newsletter, they are 50% more likely to still be a subscriber after 12 months. Retention baby, retention!


 

How the Sunday Long Read newsletter built a thriving membership by curating longform journalism

Don Van Natta Jr. and Jacob Feldman grew the newsletter to over 25,000 subscribers.

Speaking of newsletters, Simon Owens has been writing about the Sunday Long Read, a weekly curated collection of the best longform journalism published to the web. This post is itself a fairly long read, but give it the time if you care about origin stories and the how a bright idea evolves over a decade into a media phenomenon that can count Maggie Habberman among its guest editors.


More from Media Voices

 

Motor Sport Magazine’s Zamir Walimohamed on making subscriptions work

Zamir tells us about how Motor Sport Magazine has managed bringing print subscribers into its digital ecosystem, and more.

 

What to expect at our upcoming AI-focused event for publishers

There’ll be plenty to learn from all of the speakers, but here are just a few of the sessions we’re most looking forward to at Mx3 AI.

 

Substack UK’s Farrah Storr on why to embrace paid newsletters

Farrah Storr tells us about why more mainstream media brands should be investing in Substack, why you need a huge profile to start out, and more.

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