Inside Time’s AI Push: Mark Howard on Building an Agent, Not Just Another Widget

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Nov 21, 2025

Mark Howard, Chief Operating Officer at Time, discusses the media giant's groundbreaking approach to AI. He shares how Time embraced AI as a transformative tool for journalism rather than a fleeting trend. The conversation delves into partnerships with AI companies, the creation of the Time AI Agent using its extensive archive, and innovative projects like AI-generated audio briefings. Howard emphasizes the importance of accuracy and trust in news while preparing for an AI-driven future and expanding global access to quality content.

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INSIGHT

Partner, Don't Fight, The AI Shift

Time chose partnership over litigation to gain insight and product access from AI companies.
That seat-at-the-table approach helped Time shape strategy and protect its business long-term.

ADVICE

Lock Down IP Before You Scale AI

Build infrastructure first to protect IP and track bot activity before broad product launches.
Use tools like blockchain documentation and bot-tracking to monitor indexing and training attempts.

ANECDOTE

Person Of The Year Was An AI Testbed

Scale built a toolbar for Person of the Year that offered summaries, translations, and chat for four profiles.
The tool let users get medium summaries and audio translations without altering original articles.

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In this episode of The Media Copilot, Pete Pachal talks with Mark Howard, Chief Operating Officer at Time, about how a century-old newsroom is adapting to a world where readers increasingly turn to AI systems for information.

Howard explains how Time approached AI not as a passing trend but as a shift in how journalism will be discovered and consumed. He walks through the decisions behind partnering with AI companies, the work required to safeguard Time’s archive, and how the Time AI Agent grew out of experiments with summaries, translations, and audio briefings.

The conversation offers a clear look at the practical choices a legacy media brand faces when it tries to stay trusted in new formats without compromising the reporting that built its reputation.

What we cover in this episode
• How Time decided to negotiate with AI companies instead of taking an adversarial stance
• The behind-the-scenes systems created to protect IP and track bot activity
• The evolution from Person of the Year experiments to daily AI audio briefings to the Time AI Agent
• Why the agent is grounded only in Time’s archive and what that means for accuracy and trust
• How Time is approaching AI marketplaces, enterprise licensing, and the agent to agent web
• What this shift means for the newsroom, editorial workflows, and audience relationships

Learn more
Mark Howard on Time
https://time.com/author/mark-howard

The Story Behind the TIME AI Agent
https://time.com/7332572/the-story-behind-the-time-ai-agent

Mark on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/markdhoward

Mark on X
https://x.com/markdhoward

This post was drafted with AI and then carefully edited by Media Copilot editors.

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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