Exclusive: SmartNews releases new app called NewsArc
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SmartNews, the Japanese news discovery app founded in 2012, is releasing a new artificial intelligence-powered app, executives tell Axios.
Why it matters: The new app — called NewsArc — is meant to offer heavily engaged news readers a more personalized experience without putting them in echo chambers.
How it works: NewsArc uses AI to filter, identify and serve news stories, chief technology officer Cory Ondrejka says.
- The app relies on third-party large language models to promote stories that it thinks support better comprehension and meaningful engagement, per SmartNews' product senior vice president Jason Holtman.
- The app will be available to mobile and iPad users on Apple's iOS operating system and Google Android mobile users in the U.S. beginning Tuesday.
- The app is currently free, but executives said NewsArc may introduce subscriptions in the future.
Between the lines: SmartNews relies on direct relationships with more than 3,000 publishers to supply content on its free app. It pays those publishers through a revenue-share agreement to have access to that content.
- NewsArc will rely on content from those publishers for its app as well. Like SmartNews, it hires human editors to assist with curation, in addition to AI.
- Ondrejka says the company decided to build a separate app to make it easier to focus on quality recommendations.
Zoom out: SmartNews has gained a sizable audience in the U.S. since launching here in 2014. But the U.S. market "is far more polarized," Holtman says.
- "There is far more outrage and attention reinforcement products," where "outrage is the primary driver of attention."
By the numbers: The company, which is private, does not disclose the size of its U.S. audience, but SimilarWeb estimates that it's in the top 50 news apps on Apple's iOS in the U.S.
- SmartNews has raised more than $400 million to fuel its expansion. Its latest public funding round in 2021 valued the company at over $2 billion post-money.
The bottom line: "We actually think it's really important for people to have a shared view of the news," Holtman says. "We actually approach [curation] starting with, what do we think are the most important stories going on in the U.S.? And everybody sees the same set of them."
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to note that SmartNews launched in the U.S. in 2014 (not six years ago) and that NewsArc is using third-party LLMs (not proprietary models), and to remove a reference to reading pattern data. It has also been updated to clarify NewsArc is free, but may later add subscriptions.
