#21. Weekly Round Up. We still don't know how to earn money with AI

Hello, this is Sergei.

This week I was in Riga running a two-day workshop on AI implementation for regional and niche newsrooms. One question kept coming up: how do we use AI to actually make money?

Right now, most use cases point in an indirect direction:

• optimize workflows

• improve content quality

• create more value for the audience

All of this should lead to better monetization. But it’s not a direct answer. While working on AI for Newsroom, I’ve noticed something interesting: monetization is still the least explored area.

Then I came across a LinkedIn post by Katya Gorchinskaya with a similar takeaway (and a lot of very interesting stats as Katya did a very interesting research on using AI in newsrooms):

“Operations, commercial and marketing functions remain a missed opportunity.”

It feels like we’re still in phase one — using AI to create and optimize content. Phase two is obvious: using AI to generate revenue.