AI-generated summaries of articles increase time on page, publisher finds

If publishers don’t provide a summary of web articles, a browser plugin will

Publishers, you want people to read the whole story on your webpage, because you’re proud of every word of it. But here’s the problem. You write it like a mystery novel and force the reader to slog through the whole page – and see all the advertisements – before they get to the nugget they really want.

We’d rather have a summary and get the meat up front.

Bo Sacks posted an article by Aisha Majid that says a Swedish daily experimented with providing an AI-generated article summary, and found that it actually increases the amount of time people spend on a page.

“Unexpectedly,” the article says, “audiences spend longer reading articles that have summaries than those without.”

The summaries are created by an API connection from the publisher’s CMS to ChatGPT. Which seems like a smart way to do it. I’ve tried to find a good Wordpress plugin that does the same, with no luck so far, so if you know of one, please tell me.

The summaries weren’t always accurate, and the company had the sense to have a policy requiring human supervision of any AI-generated content.

Think about that for a moment. That means this new AI-generated wonder actually adds to the editorial workload rather than lessening it. But it’s not a big burden. It’s about 30 seconds.

I’d like to stop here and point out a couple questions I have about this story.

The first is to ask whether time on page is necessarily a good thing. It is definitely a good thing in terms of SEO. Google ranks your site better if you have higher time on page, apparently on the assumption that more time on page means you’re “engaged” with the content.

But I’m not convinced that’s a good metric for the reader. Personally, I’d rather have the content beamed directly into my brain and spend no time on the page, but seriously, if the reader can get what he wants in less time, that’s a plus for the reader, no matter what Google says. And if the publisher won’t do it, a browser plugin will.

My second question has to do with their motivation for pursuing this strategy, which is to get more young readers.

The word is that young readers prefer having content in lots of different formats.

Okay, but why the obsession with young readers?

Do they spend more money? Probably not.

In my opinion, media companies need to get over this obsession with young readers. And I’m not only saying that because my beard is mostly gray. I’m saying that because media companies need to think about where their bread is buttered. And generally, it’s the older people who are buttering the bread. They have the money.

Anyway, the bottom line is that this is an interesting experiment in using AI in a thoughtful and responsible way to address reader needs. It will be interesting to follow this and see how it develops.

Resources

Swedish daily Aftonbladet finds people spend longer on articles with AI-generated summaries
https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/digital-journalism/aftonbladet-sweden-biggest-daily-use-chatgpt-in-the-newsroom/