The future of news is people, bots and the avatars we trust
I was honored to be invited by Nieman Lab to contribute to Predictions for Journalism 2026. It gave me space to put words around something I’ve been circling for years now -- not just how news is made, but who we trust to deliver reality to us in the first place.
For the last quarter-century, those of us in media have lived inside a long transition. AI didn’t just change workflows, it collapsed them. The idea that we can simply thread AI through brittle legacy systems and call that innovation is, in my view, a comforting fiction. The future of news doesn’t get rebuilt by retrofitting the past. It requires starting from scratch.
Here’s a short excerpt from my piece:
The idea that news organizations ‘of record’ will continue to serve as primary gatekeepers of information is already a nostalgic fantasy. The future of news will be shaped less by institutions and more by the people, creators, and intelligences we choose to trust to narrate reality for us.
In the full essay, I argue that the future of news is less about institutions and more about emotional trust -- delivered through people, creators, bots, digital twins and avatars we choose to believe. Sometimes that avatar will be human. Sometimes it won’t be. What matters is not authority by default, but trust that’s earned.
You can read the full piece here: Predictions for Journalism 2026: The future of news is people, bots and the avatars we trust
This thinking connects deeply to the work I’m doing on The Intersect, where we keep asking the same underlying question -- how do we live, build and flourish as humans inside our ever-changing tech?
More soon plus we’re back with show this week … so see you all Thursday!
-- Cory