This week, we are wrapping up a series on The Rebooting Show that examines the role of product at a time of distribution and monetization shifts. The twin themes that emerged are that publishers are increasingly focused on direct relationships with audiences and are in a back-to-basics mode of focusing product resources on critical business objectives, which often rely on loyalty. And the looming question: How will AI be used to make these businesses more effective while not losing their distinctiveness in a sea of artificial slop.

Brian Alvey, CTO of WordPress VIP, discussed with me how AI’s impact on publishers’ day-to-day operations will be felt first and foremost on mundane tasks that end up eating up a lot of resources. The early efforts to embed AI within the publishing process were predictably ham-handed. Using ChatGPT to create AI slop is hardly innovative – and unlikely to be very effective. I’m very skeptical of creating much value out of using AI to churn out tons of aggregation newsletters, for instance.

The most immediate opportunities in the content process lie in areas like tagging, inserting links to related articles, testing headlines and the like. As Brian warns, there’s no point in using AI in a way that eliminates the competitive advantage of having a distinct voice.

Some highlights from our conversation:

On the site as a requisite for an independent path: "If you want to be around in five years, I think so. Don't you like why would you has nobody ever learned that building up and like no offense to any of these, you know, what I call bastard gatekeepers that take your audience away from you."
On where AI’s impact will be felt: "People probably overestimate the amount of things that AI is going to help them automate of what they do today. They underestimate how many things they're just not doing because it's so hard that AI is going to let them do."
On AI’s use within the content creation process rather than creating content: "Some parts of that [process] can absolutely be handled by modern generative chat, GPT-style, LLM AI."
On distinctiveness in an AI era: "Be remarkable, No. 1. That's how you'll stand out from a sea of junk."
On being product-minded vs a tech company: Publishers “should be product minded. They are creating a product for people to consume. They should have product talent. If you are the New York Times, you have a thousand product people. If you are somebody else, you have 10. But no, they shouldn't be a technology company."

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