Patch’s AI Experiment: Thousands of Newsletters, Zero Humans

Channels with Peter Kafka

Vox Media Podcast Network

Technology, Tv & Film, Business News, News

4.4 • 585 Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Everyone agrees that the decline/disapperance of local news is a big problem. No one agrees about the best way to solve it. So let’s check in on a new AI push from Patch, the people who have been trying to do local news, online, at scale, for more than two decades. Last spring, Patch CEO Warren St. John announced that he was running local newsletters for thousands of communities across the U.S., without employing a single human to make them. This week, I asked him how it’s going. No one is going to mistake these “Patch AM” emails for a fully-staffed local news outlet — and in fact Patch relies on other local outlets to help populate their newsletters. But they also seem like a well-meaning effort to provide residents with something, as opposed to nothing. Or, in St. John’s words: He’s providing them with a Kind bar, not a 5-course meal. Does that make you nervous about the future of news? Or optimistic? Somewhere in between? Take a listen and let me know what you think. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	In today's fast-changing digital world, proving your company is trustworthy isn't just important for growth, it's essential.
0:08.8	That's why Vanta is here. Vanta helps companies of all sizes get compliant fast and stay that way, with industry-leading AI, automation and continuous monitoring.
0:20.3	So whether you're a startup tackling your first
0:22.8	SOC 2 or ISO-27-001 or an enterprise managing vendor risk, Vanta's trust management platform makes it
0:31.8	quicker, easier and more scalable. The results? According to a recent IDC study, Vanta customers slash over
0:40.4	$500,000 a year in costs and are three times more productive. Establishing trust isn't optional.
0:48.7	Vanta makes it automatic. Visit vanta.com slash Voxpod to sign up for a free demo today.
0:56.3	That's v-a-n-ta.com slash voxpod.
1:04.2	From the V-A-Media podcast network, this is channels with Peter Kafka.
1:12.8	That is me.
1:13.4	I'm also the chief correspondent at Business Insider.
1:16.9	And today we're talking about AI, of course, because it's 2025, specifically about AI and media, also because of 20205.
1:25.4	And we've gone from, will media companies use AI to make content to
1:29.3	here's how media companies are using AI to make content right now.
1:34.6	I got to this one because of an earlier conversation on the show with Henry Blodgett.
1:38.5	A lot of you liked that one.
1:39.6	Thank you for letting me know.
1:41.4	And Henry was speaking approvingly about local news companies using AI,
1:46.0	and that led me to look up Patch, the local news company, which earlier this year announced
1:51.2	it was going to start covering news in thousands of communities around the country solely using
1:57.0	AI, zero humans involved. It may be helpful as you're listening to this conversation
2:02.6	with CEO Warren St. John to actually see the product he's making with AI. You can sign up for it
	...

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