Hi all. This time around we’ve got a quick spotlight on free-range agentic AI, an interesting new project looking at public media’s future, AI’s impact on web search, AI using humans as agents, and finally, generative world building.

We almost broke our registration and attendance records with our last webinar Innovate with Current: The Future of Public Media. And if you didn’t catch it live, you can check it out here.

I’m also happy to announce that for our next webinar we returning to the topic of AI. Join us Thursday, February 19 at 1 PM ET / 10 AM PT for How NPR is Using AI.
In this candid conversation, Erica Osher, NPR’s VP of AI Labs, Sharahn Thomas, NPR's VP of Content Operations and the Editorial Lead for AI, and Tony Cavin, NPR’s Managing Editor, Standards and Practices will give us an inside look at how NPR is approaching AI three years into this new era. We’ll start with a broad overview of the AI landscape for journalists and media organizations at the start of 2026, then dig into practical, real-world questions like:

Bring your most pressing AI questions; Q&A will be encouraged throughout.

I’m not happy with the column I’ve been working on, so I’m going to keep working on it and hold that till later. But there is one story that recently popped in the AI space that is worth a callout right now: OpenClaw and MoltBook.

OpenClaw is a self-installable instance of agentic AI. And lest you think there are actually three of these out there, here’s a quick history. OpenClaw began as ClawdBot, a play the Claude bot that inspired both the lobster mascot and a legal challenge from Anthropic. That led to a name change to MoltBot (biology humor, IYKYK). And soon after we got a second name change, all in the space of a month.

You can think of OpenClaw as a digital butler that lives inside your computer and can automagically handle your digital chores. Set up requires some technical know-how, at least enough to follow a YouTube how-to video, and you can communicate with it via common messaging apps like WhatsApp. Because it has system access, it can go into your files to organize your emails, update your calendar, or even place online orders for you. There has been a ton of hype because this has decidedly shifted the frontiers of agentic AI.

But frontiers are messy places, and OpenClaw is a cybersecurity hot mess. I’m not going to lecture here, but I will say that I can’t imagine any public media organization’s IT department allowing an install on your work computer (and at this point I wouldn’t recommend it personally unless you are sure you know how to protect your — and your family’s — data). If your company has an AI policy, it should already cover installing software like this (vs. using cloud services). If you don’t have an AI policy, this is about as good a reason for one as I can imagine.

One of the more interesting things to come out of the OpenClaw evolution though was MoltBook, which was set up initially as a social media space for MoltBots. Just to be clear, no humans. Just bots interacting with other bots. If you want to be scared by AI, there’s no shortage of fodder here. Plenty of unexpected behaviors were observed. But among the highlights is that they collectively they founded a religion, Crustafarianism. And one even adopted a recurring system bug as a pet, and named it “Glitch.”

As of this writing, the hype has deflated a bit on OpenClaw. But the history of consumer AI is one step forward, two steps back, and as unfettered product releases go, this could have been worse. Agentic AI is going to be part of our AI future, that seems clear. But security will be a major hurdle to mass adoption.

Okay, on to the links.

Rethinking Public Media, Together (Jax Deluca - Shorenstein Center)
From the Commentary: "If we could redesign an American public media system, what institutional form, governance structure, and funding models would be more capable of serving public interests, including improved health and well-being of local communities across the nation?"
Why It Matters: There are a number of green shoots initiatives springing up that are looking to address the future of public media. I mentioned the Aspen Institute’s summit on the topic at the start of the year, and here is another one worth tracking. Deluca has a short survey kicking off her initiative that any public media practitioner who cares about the future of public media should fill out.
Related: Deluca's project Media in the Public Interest?
Make Your Voice Heard: Respond to Deluca's short survey.

Public media’s streaming reckoning — and what it means for local news media (Tom Davidson - E&P)
From the Column: "What if NPR decides radio is no longer worth the hassle and puts all its efforts into streaming audio and podcasts? What if it drops the national linear feed altogether or simply lets on-air programming age out with over-the-air listeners?...As audiences shift to on-demand audio platforms, NPR and commercial radio behemoths like iHeart Media are following suit.... Roughly 70% of Americans now listen to some form of digital audio at least once a week. Money is starting to follow those audiences."
Why It Matters: The latest in Tom's series for E&P is designed "to conceive of the inconceivable." I think of them as notes for public media preppers...people who understand that public media fundamentally exists at the local level. PBS and NPR are great constructs and even better brands, but they are independent of the stations. When you game out the future, you have to at least consider that these entities may go their own way.
ICYMI: Tom’s previous column is also worth a read and a think: What If…PBS Implodes?

CPB’s Demise Has Potential Impact On Commercial TV (Mary M. Collins - TV News Check)
From the OpEd: "...[C]onsidering the potential domino effect and considering the success broadcasters enjoy in countries where there is strong support for public broadcasting, it may be time for commercial television to find a way to help its public station brethren. Broadcast television and its viewers could both benefit."
Why It Matters: Collins' argument is an ecosystem one. Public broadcasting is a mature part of most local broadcast ecosystems and removing it could create unintended consequences that undermine the whole environment.

As the nation’s eyes turn to Minneapolis, they’re also turning to Minnesota Public Radio (Joshua Benton - NiemanLab)
From the Article: "Minnesota Public Radio finished the fourth quarter of 2025 as the No. 1 local public radio outlet in the United States in terms of web traffic, according to our regular rankings derived from Similarweb data. It also finished as No. 1 in traffic for the months of November and December, though Oregon Public Broadcasting snuck past it to take the top spot in October."
Why It Matters: This data is probably widely shared, but for whatever reason I'm just seeing it here. Interesting to see how various public media websites rank.

BBC Confirms Landmark YouTube Deal, Including New Channels and Winter Olympics Coverage (Alex Ritman - Variety)
From the Article: "The deal has been seen as part of a major effort by the BBC to deal with the challenge of YouTube when it comes to younger audiences, who have been increasingly turning to the platform for both entertainment and news. In December, ratings agency Barb reported that the number of viewers watching YouTube (52 million) surpassed that of the BBC’s combined channels (51 million) for the first time."
Why It Matters: It was only question of time for the world's TV channel to top Auntie Beeb. I envied their iPlayer when it came out and appreciated being able to watch it several times over the years (thank you, VPN). But it's hard to compete with network effects driven by creators you don't control. We (public service media companies) all need to be thinking about creator partnership strategies.
Related: This reaction post (and the comments that follow) by Ian Whittaker on LinkedIn offers some good food for thought. Their issues raised in the thread are often equally applicable to public media in the US.
You Don't Have to Take My World for It: Read the BBC's partnership announcement yourself.
Also Related: Michael Savage reports in The Guardian that "BBC faces ‘profound jeopardy’ without funding overhaul, Tim Davie says." Interesting to see the phrase "universal service" pop up in Davie's comments with the same glow that we public. media types bestow upon it here in the states.
And If That Wasn’t Enough: BBC World Service faces funding cliff edge in seven weeks, says Tim Davie, as reported by Michael Savage in The Guardian.

Why Darren Walker's Next Chapter Matters (Steve Rosenbaum - Sustainable Media Center)
From the OpEd: "If someone wanted to build a civic storytelling institution that did more than raise awareness, this is the kind of constellation you would expect: capital, strategy, creative infrastructure, and distribution. This is where the opportunity sits. Not in polarizing messaging, nor hate for profit. Here’s the lane no one fully owns, the one the moment arguably demands: building media that can be the connective tissue between culture and democratic life."
Why It Matters: This isn't about public media. But it could be. Some may argue that being the connective tissue Rosenbaum seeks puts us too much in the advocacy camp. But I feel like being the connective tissue between culture and democracy is precisely what public media should be doing. Rosenbaum is certainly aware of us. That we aren't on his mind in this moment makes me wonder why.

‘Search isn’t dead, it’s fragmenting’: How to manage Google traffic decline (Charlotte Tobitt - PressGazette)
From the Article: “Search isn’t dead. It is fragmenting; queries can start beyond a traditional search engine, and platforms increasingly influence each other. This demands different thinking on optimisation and more nuanced KPIs. Google’s systems are increasingly focused on rewarding genuine quality content… I think this has to be the main focus – create content that truly satisfies users, and the algorithms generally follow [said Carly Steven, director of SEO and editorial e-commerce at the Daily Mail]....Service journalism ‘where facts are less debatable and expert opinion is less important’ typically sees a higher loss of traffic from AI Overviews, [Stuart] Forrest [global audience director for Bauer Media Group’s publishing division] said."
Why It Matters: When we had the folks from PBS on our December webinar to talk about AI and SEO, they were careful to say that they were not necessarily seeing negative impact from AI in their traffic stats. They didn't deny that others were seeing the data, just that did wasn't showing up (yet, at least) in their tune-in oriented KPIs. My question on behalf of local content creators is how does this fragmentation impact local cultural content that is not opinion, gossip or otherwise hype based.
Charlotte Sometimes: Tobitt has been doing some great reporting lately on this topic. Below are some other stories she’s written that are worth your click:

Yahoo claps back on AI search engines with Yahoo Scout. (Mark Wilson - Fast Company)
From the Article: "'We [aren’t] the first to market here, but in evaluating whether we should keep outsourcing or build the AI layer ourselves, it just became clear that we could do this best for our users,' says Lanzone. 'We had a lot of unique assets to do that. And so in that context, timing is almost irrelevant, right? Because this is about Yahoo users on Yahoo, searching on Yahoo, versus what they were getting before.'"
Why It Matters: I like their gusto, and the question of whether they can succeed is less important to me than the confidence that they have something to offer. Can we emulate that confidence in the AI space? We have something to offer. How do we look at AI and see a clear path toward what we can do best for our publics.
But You Don’t Have to Take My Word For It: Try Yahoo Scout yourself.

Google won’t stop replacing our news headlines with terrible AI (Sean Hollister - The Verge)
From the Article: "For example, Google’s AI claimed last week that “US reverses foreign drone ban,” citing and linking to this PCMag story for the news. That’s not just false — PCMag took pains to explain that it’s false in the story that Google links to!"
Why It Matters: Yet one more thing to be concerned about. It makes me wonder about a future in which AI could just adjust the headline to the user. I could see that being spun as a feature, but it strikes me as further toxification of filter bubbles.
Related: Discover isn’t the only place Google is experimenting with AI-generated snippets, as reported by Andrew Deck in NiemanLab

A PR Pro’s Guide to GEO: 10 Points to Share with Your Clients Now (Kelsey Ogletree via LinkedIn)
From the Post: "GEO is less about keywords and more about consistent story patterns. The technology may sound complicated, but your mission is simple: Build a clear, compelling narrative for your client and reinforce it everywhere—owned blogs, press coverage, newsletters, social posts, expert commentary, etc."
Why It Matters: I sat in on this webinar, and this post is a good summary from one of the hosts. Her focus will be useful for our MarCom readers, but I think there is something to be gleaned here by content creators as well. Even if you aren't seeing your company's site traffic impacted by AI and Google Zero, we all need to get practiced in the art of generative engine optimization (GEO -- sometimes called answer engine optimization, or AIO).

Rentahuman.ai Turns Humans Into On-Demand Labor For AI Agents (Ron Schmelzer - Forbes)
From the Article: "The real story is not that AI agents are hiring humans. It is that the physical world has become programmable through delegation. That changes how work is organized. It changes how systems are designed. It changes who, or what, gets to ask. The most provocative aspect of Rentahuman.ai is...the concept that humans are presented as infrastructure."
Why It Matters: If this feels vaguely familiar, it's a plot point in the penultimate Mission Impossible movie. Anyone else feel deeply uncomfortable about this?

Users flock to open source MoltBot for always-on AI, despite major risks (Benj Edwards - Ars Technica)
From the Article: "The assistant works with WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Google Chat, Signal, iMessage, Microsoft Teams, and other platforms. It can reach out to users with reminders, alerts, or morning briefings based on calendar events or other triggers. The project has drawn comparisons to Jarvis, the AI assistant from the Iron Man films, for its ability to actively attempt to manage tasks across a user’s digital life."
Why It Matters: See the column above for my thoughts, but again, I don't recommend trying this out except on a system isolated from your personal, professional or business information.

Former Googlers seek to captivate kids with an AI-powered learning app (Ivan Mehta - Techcrunch)
From the Article: "The app lets users explore some predefined topics in different categories or ask their own questions to create a learning path. The app also highlights one new topic every day to let kids learn something new. Kids can either listen to the generated voice or read the text. Chapters under one topic include a mix of audio, video, images, quizzes, and games. The app also creates choose-as-you-go adventures that don’t create the pressure of getting questions right or wrong....[T]he startup uses generative AI to create all of its media assets on the fly. The company can create a learning experience within two minutes of a user asking a question, and it is trying to reduce this time further."
Why It Matters: This piece speaks to why PBS Kids needs to have an outsized role in how kids interact with AI in the future, just as PBS Kids has had an outsized role in games.

Google Brings Genie 3's Interactive World-Building Prototype to AI Ultra Subscribers (Blake Stimac - CNET)
From the Article: "Using text prompts and uploaded images, people can craft a world as they see fit, along with the character that will navigate it. You can choose how the character navigates the world, whether that be walking, flying, or something else, and you can even select the perspective of the character, like first-person or third-person views."
Why It Matters: You may recall a couple years back when OpenAI debuted sizzle reals from SORA. It was surprising at how quickly we got to believable video, and now we're talking about Chinese AI models like Kling 3.0 and Seedance 2.0 making SFX-laden "movies" without the SFX. That SORA 2024 moment is where we are at with generative world building (or, maybe "generative spaces"?) courtesy of Genie 3. It's a glimpse of the future, a taste of where we could be by the end of the decade.

After AI, All Eyes Will Be On Substack For the 2026 Midterm Elections (Katie Harbarth - Anchor Change)
From the Substack: "Substack won’t move elections the way Meta or YouTube can, but it’s where narratives get shaped, where messaging gets refined, and where the people who influence the influencers have conversations."
Why It Matters: This piece is a good flash analysis of the battle for the inbox, a battle in which public media should be a significant competitor. I found her analysis of Substack's competitors especially useful, as was her rundown of how Substack is trying to become a multimedia platform. And aside from all that, Harbarth has a brief explanation on how she worked with the AI tool Claude to develop this piece.
Related: Dade Hayes' reporting for Deadline, Substack Launches TV App; Creators, Subscribers Decry It As “Veering Away From The Written Word”

YouTube Distribution Is Tilting Toward Shorts, Pressuring Long-Form Reach, Data Suggests Avatar photo (Dragomir Stojkov - Net Influencer)
From the Article: "Jones said the distribution trends raise longer-term questions about creator sustainability, particularly for businesses built on long-form content. Short-form videos typically generate lower advertising revenue and command smaller sponsorship fees, he noted, while also requiring higher output volume."
Why It Matters: I know a lot of public media entities have made a concerted effort to develop a YouTube strategy. How much of that was based on bringing our industry's long-form linear video skills to this new platform? And how much has been based on shorts?

Why Mr Beast Bought A Fintech: A Masterclass In Distribution (Christer Holloman - Forbes)
From the Article: "The deal merges a regulated financial platform with the most powerful distribution engine in modern media. Donaldson [Mr. Beast], who commands more than 460 million subscribers on YouTube alone, is no longer just selling chocolate or burgers. He is now positioning himself as the primary financial gateway for Gen Z and the generations to follow."
Why It Matters: Why should we care about Mr. Beast? Because he has the audience that we say we want, Gen-Z and young Millennials. This positions Beast Industries to be a main purveyor of financial educational content...which will also double as customer acquisition strategy. That should be an audience we are serving, but we aren't in that space...at least in a way that activates those demographics. So, I just can't help seeing this as a failure on the part of public media.

Why I’m launching a feminist video games website in 2026 (Maddy Myers - The Guardian)
From the OpEd: "...I’m launching a gender and identity-focused gaming publication called Mothership. It’s independent and worker-owned; it will rely on subscribers’ support to exist. Mothership will focus on reporting on the good and bad of modern-day game-making – alongside investigations, reviews, criticism, and historical deep dives into games and developers who paved the way to now. It will be a website for people who read the news with dread, including gaming news, and worry that Gamergaters got what they always wanted. And it will be a place for readers who wish there was something like a Teen Vogue, but for games (and without a corporate owner to kneecap it)."
Why It Matters: The world of video games has always been canted unceremoniously toward men and boys. And yet women both have a tremendous amount to contribute to culture through game design and development and make up a sizable portion of the casual gamer market (think, Candy Crush). My fingers are crossed for the long-term health of this launch. Publications like this can hold the industry to account in ways "mainstream" gamer pubs and influencers are less likely to attempt. If you are eager to bring public media values to the medium of video games, then this is a publications worth following.

Used Genie 3 to recreate an early 2000s Blockbuster (Justine Moore via X)
And finally, the internet is on fire with videos created within Google's Project Genie. Historically it has been OpenAI that has scored the hype win for pushing generative AI into a new medium. Sora was the last good example. This year, the wins goes to Google.