There's hope for news in AI 😅 Microsoft AI analyzed 37.5 million Copilot conversations from January to September 2025. "News and Current Events" ranks in the top 10 topics on both mobile and desktop (image shows monthly top 10 ranks for topic-intent pairings on mobile - highlight is mine) First time I've seen this in a major usage study. Contrasts HBR research last year where news didn't crack the top 10. (I know, not the same research). A few observations: - The device matters. Mobile users treat AI like a companion - health dominates, but news is steady throughout the day. Desktop users check news during work hours alongside productivity tasks. - "Searching" is the main intent. People are asking AI to find and explain news, not to write about it. - The user base is broadening. January was heavy on programming queries. By September, society and culture topics had climbed. More mainstream users means more general interest - including news. Not a revolution. But a signal. People want news in their AI conversations. Now the question is who supplies it.
I'm not really sure this is good news or hope at all. This means that IA will exploit your content, interpret it, rewrite it and serve it. Is not like a syndication, is more an appropiation. Wht's the use of having good writers if you only need some facts and the IA to fill the blanks? And how is a newsroom going to monetize this?
Isn't this exactly the smoking gun evidence of substitution that would swing the NYT v OpenAI/MDL case...?
Interesting but would need to dive into the results to see how ‘news’ is defined. It does contrast somewhat with the results from the October RISJ survey saying that information-seeking has become the primary use-case for AI, more than doubling to 24% weekly usage but news consumption remains limited at 6%