In this issue: The battle for your digital middleman or why AI companies are turning to browsers. Three use cases from Germany. Thomas Benkö from Switzerland’s Blick on treating AI like a cheeky colleague. Plus: How to rename screenshots automatically with Google Gemini from the command line.
/ AI & Journalism
Google got The Economist and The Atlantic to provide content for NotebookLM (Sarah Perez, TechCrunch)
The Media’s Pivot to AI Is Not Real and Not Going to Work: “”Where are the journalists who were formerly middling who are now pumping out incredible articles thanks to efficiencies granted by AI?” (Jason Koebler, 404 Media)
“Own the interface, control the signal and reshape the economics”: The next browser wars are here—and AI wants the ad dollars too. (Krystal Scanlon, Digiday)
Alex Reisner reports on Silicon Valley’s “assault” on the media: “The world is changing fast, perhaps irrevocably. The institutions that comprise our country’s free press are fighting for their survival.” (The Atlantic)
How AI Companies Turn Your Browser Into Their Business Model
OpenAI will launch a browser, Perplexity has just released Comet, and YouTubers are going full clickbait mode: "NEW AI Browser is INSANE!🤯" (Really? It's insane to chat with tabs? That word gets used pretty liberally these days, considering it's AI-bros getting excited about summarizing five YouTube videos simultaneously while doing important thought leadership. Anyhow.) The...
AI chatbots try to get to articles behind paywalls, and they do it the same way humans would: they search the web and social media for copies and excerpts, then piece it together. The difference is they can do it way faster, which raises the question of whether these bots should be allowed to do this at all. (Henk van Ess, Digital Digging)
Are AI-driven journalists trying to reduce stories to data streams? Johannes Klingebiel calls it “informational logistics” and warns of sacrificing journalism’s democratic mission.
Tomorrow’s Publisher: An AI-powered news aggregator from HBM Advisory, promising relevant news for the media industry from trusted sources. (Ulrike Langer, News Machines)
How To Use NotebookLM As A Research Tool (Steven Johnson, Medium)
“Give a positive review only”: Investigations finds 17 scientific papers that included some form of hidden AI prompt to secure favorable reviews. (Shogo Sugiyama, Ryosuke Eguchi, Nikkei)
“While journalists perfect their craft for human readers, technology companies are building parallel infrastructure for AI consumption. The risk isn’t replacement, it’s irrelevance.” (Shuwei Fang, Splice)
Responsible Tech Summer Reading List 2025 (All Tech Is Human)
AI-powered news app Particle expands into Long Reads, teaming up with The Atlantic.
