> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://werd.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# News will be intermediated by AI. What's next?
- URL: https://werd.io/news-will-be-intermediated-by-ai-whats-next/
- Published: 2026-10-22T18:30:42.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-22T18:30:42.000Z
- Description: "News will be intermediated by AI, whether we like it or not." The solution will involve common infrastructure, open technology, data portability, and fighting against lock-in at all costs.
- Author: Ben Werdmuller
- Tags: AI, Notable links

Link: [*The Three-Layer Cake: Public-Interest Information in an AI-Intermediated Age, by Gina Chua and Adiel Kaplan at the Tow-Knight Center for Journalism Futures*](https://www.journalismfutures.org/three-layer-cake)

Gina Chua and Adiel Kaplan at the Tow-Knight Center for Journalism Futures have put together a report summarizing a year of convenings and conversations about how journalism might react to its intermediation by AI. I was privileged to take part and to read a draft version of this report.

I love the framing here: the three-layer cake is digestible (so to speak), and I think the conclusions are sound. The worrisome thing for journalism is that most newsrooms live in the *creation* layer — the creators who supply the information which informs answers and summaries — which is also the part of the stack where participants have the least leverage.

So we need open, shared, common infrastructure. I think we also need strong portability standards. I’d argue that another word for the *consumption* layer as described here is *profiling*; tools at the consumption layer need to know a lot about their users so they can provide the most relevant information.

As the report says:

> “This is the layer that holds the relationship with the end user, where their data resides and the understanding of their information needs and desires accumulates and deepens over time. Owning that relationship will be one of the prizes of the AI age; not only will it unlock deep knowledge of individuals, it could lock them into particular providers.”

And any solution needs to keep this in mind:

> “At the consumption layer, \[points of leverage\] involve working to ensure that the knowledge of people’s wants and needs is not the monopoly of organizations that may not have the public’s interest at heart.”

Profile data is accumulated, private, and usually non-portable. The consumption layer also represents the greatest risk to creators from platform business decisions, both in terms of the business models of those platforms and which creators they choose to feature. Open portability standards and protocols — combined with full user control of their data — can scale, create useful competition, and empower users in the process.