Exclusive: Yahoo launches afternoon audio digest powered by AI
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Yahoo has launched a new afternoon AI-powered audio news briefing, senior vice president and general manager of Yahoo News Kat Downs Mulder exclusively tells Axios.
Why it matters: AI is powering a new wave of audio formats in newsrooms as audiences increasingly crave on-demand listening.
How it works: "Your Daily Digest" will be available weekdays from 12pm to 5pm local device time in the Yahoo News app on iOS and Android in the U.S. It follows the release of an AI-generated morning edition earlier this year.
- Episodes are six to eight minutes long and summarize the top stories from the top three categories that users engage with the most in the app, including lifestyle, entertainment and current events.
- The digest pulls from Yahoo's vast network of news sources, including its own reporting and its partner content.
- "We ground the AI very specifically in these specific articles from our network," Downs Mulder says. "There is a very tight loop between what the summary is allowed to produce and the original source text itself, and then, of course, we have quality checks."
Between the lines: The feature builds on Yahoo's acquisition of the Artifact app in 2024, where it has used the tech to revamp its news app with improved personalization.
- "Audio is a really core piece of our evolution towards a multimodal news experience, whether you're watching, listening or reading," Downs Mulder says.
The big picture: Yahoo joins a growing list of publishers creating audio digests. This format isn't new, with news outlets previously creating Flash Briefings for Amazon Alexa. But AI has made it cheaper and easier to produce.
- Business Insider and Time both launched AI audio briefings this summer, featuring each of the publisher's top stories. Time also recently launched an AI agent that lets people ask questions and generate text summaries and audio briefs.
What's next: Yahoo plans to add an evening audio briefing and eventually add monetization.
