Why Yahoo Still Matters and What It Knows About the Future of News
The Media Copilot
Why formats beyond text matter
Kat argues for multiple modalities—video, audio, photography—to make news more accessible and engaging.
A candid look at how aggregation, personalization, and trust shape news discovery in an AI-driven internet.
Yahoo has been part of the internet’s front door for more than two decades. But what does it mean to guide audiences through news today, when consumption is fragmented, trust is fragile, and AI is reshaping how information is found, summarized, and shared?
In this Season 4 conversation of The Media Copilot, Pete Pachal sits down with Kat Downs Mulder, GM of Yahoo News, to unpack how one of the largest digital media platforms in the world is rethinking aggregation, personalization, and user habits in the age of AI.
From audio-first experiences and AI-powered summaries to the integration of Artifact’s technology into the Yahoo News app, Mulder explains how Yahoo is balancing innovation with responsibility while supporting original journalism across a noisy, algorithm-driven ecosystem.
Why This Matters
AI is no longer just a back-end optimization tool. It is actively shaping how audiences encounter news, how trust is maintained, and how publishers survive. This episode offers a rare inside look at how a major aggregator is navigating those shifts thoughtfully, without racing ahead of the facts or sacrificing credibility.
For media leaders, journalists, creators, and product teams, this conversation surfaces real-world lessons about where AI adds value, where human judgment remains essential, and why aggregation still plays a critical role in a healthy information ecosystem.
What We Cover in This Episode 👇
• Why Yahoo still matters as a major gateway to news
• How AI is reshaping content aggregation and personalization
• Why audio is becoming a powerful habit-building news format
• What Yahoo learned from integrating Artifact into its app
• How AI summaries drive deeper engagement rather than replace it
• Balancing speed, scale, and trust in AI-driven news products
• How publishers and creators coexist inside Yahoo’s ecosystem
• Why user behavior matters more than age or demographics
• What an agent-driven web means for the future of news discovery
👤 Guest
Kat Downs Mulder
General Manager, Yahoo News : https://news.yahoo.com/
🔗 LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katdowns
🔗 X (formerly Twitter):
https://x.com/katdowns
🔗 Yahoo Press Announcement:
https://www.yahooinc.com/press/yahoo-appoints-kat-downs-mulder-as-svp-amp-general-manager-of-yahoo-news
🔗 Speaker Bio (Digital Content Next Summit):
https://events.digitalcontentnext.org/next-summit-2023/speaker/636864/kat-downs-mulder
📩 Enjoyed this episode?
Subscribe to The Media Copilot on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. On YouTube? Tap the Like button and Subscribe to the channel.
For more AI tools and resources built for media professionals, visit MediaCopilot.ai.
Produced by Pete Pachal and Executive Producer Michele Musso
Edited by the Musso Media Team
Music: “Favorite” by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under CC BY 4.0
© 2025 Musso Media. All rights reserved. © AnyWho Media 2025
The AI-powered Podcast Player
