Recently, as part of The Audiencers’ Festival in London, FT Strategies’ Aliya Itzkowitz tried to answer the question of where AI should come in when you’re on the quest for subscribers. This article is Aliya’s summary of her presentation.
Key takeaways to copy & share
> FT Strategies has run its AI Launchpad with 48 publishers. The backdrop is a discovery crisis: generative search answers the question and removes the click, and referral traffic is eroding > Aktuality in Slovakia used AI to enter a vertical it had no expertise in, generating travel guides from input variables. Generating section by section rather than whole articles produced noticeably fewer hallucinations > Il Messaggero built a tool turning raw data into infographics, replacing work it had outsourced. The prompt was the hard part, and models differ markedly in how well they handle visual media > The FT's Next Best Offer model uses more than 350 inputs to pick which offer a trialist sees at renewal, optimising for lifetime value rather than conversion. A/B tests show significantly higher save rates > Aliya Itzkowitz's framing is worth borrowing. The AI story for news is usually about scarcity and what is lost. All three of these are about abundance: more topics covered, more formats possible, more tailored offers
