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This edition covers Google’s new AI Mode Search and what it means for publisher referral traffic, Mistral OCR as a low-cost tool for digitising older documents, Canva’s State of Marketing and AI benchmarks, Lisa Nandy’s reassurances on creative-industries support at the Creative UK summit, the Authors Alliance submission to the UK AI and copyright consultation, an argument that fears of AI replacing human writing are overstated, and a note ahead of London Book Fair.
Google’s new AI Mode Search moves even further toward answering questions directly, rather than sending users to external websites. Short-term, this bridges the gap between traditional search and more conversational interfaces. Longer-term, this could be the biggest shift yet in how people find and consume information. Publishers, particularly of reference and non-fiction, have long depended on search-driven traffic. If Google answers questions without sending users to your site, what happens to referral traffic, SEO, and monetization? Mistral OCR is a new capability available through the European AI company’s Le Chat model and API, which is optimised for digitising older documents. It looks particularly interesting for archives and digitising print media, at a relatively low cost of $1/1,000 pages. Canva’s new State of Marketing and AI report has some interesting benchmarks, with 85% of marketers reporting time savings from use of AI (four hours per week on average), 89% claiming trust in AI but 77% also reporting moderate to high oversight of AI outputs. I was at the Creative UK Investment for Growth Summit at King’s Place this week, where Secretary of State Lisa Nandy gave the closing keynote. Interestingly, given some of the media coverage of her ministerial colleague Peter Kyle’s closeness to AI developers, her message was that government was joined up in its support for the creative industries and the value of content. It was what the audience wanted to hear; it will be interesting to see what government delivers in its response to the AI and Copyright consultation. Speaking of the consultation, the Authors Alliance in the US has published its submission. I disagree with their recommendation of a broad text and data mining exception, but they make an interesting argument that licensing helps to create monopolies (I would argue that this is a good argument for collective licensing models based on rightsholder opt-in). What is the impact of AI on trust in the written word? This article argues that fears of AI replacing human writing are overblown, contending that AI-generated content will increase the total volume of writing but will not meaningfully replace high-quality, human-authored work due to factors like credibility, originality, and audience preference. It suggests that the bigger disruption for publishers comes from AI-powered discovery and recommendation systems, which could change how readers find and engage with written content more than AI-generated writing itself. I’ll be at London Book Fair next week and hope to see many friends, colleagues and subscribers there!
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