Will AI Inbox Summaries Hurt Your Newsletter?
Gmail and Apple Mail can now summarize emails, so readers can skip most of your newsletter and still get the gist. Newsletters that mostly round up other people's work are the most at risk. Newsletters built on your own ideas, results and personality are the safest, because a summary can't replace the reason people read you.
Open your inbox on your phone and there's a good chance you'll see a short AI summary sitting on top of some of your emails. Google and Apple both do this now, and it's handy as a reader.
As a newsletter writer, it raises a real question. If someone can get the main points without reading your email, what happens to your clicks, your sales and the relationship you're building with them?
What publishers are saying about this.
This came up at Press Gazette's Future of Media Technology Conference in September, where people who run newsletters at big publishers talked about what's working. You can read the Press Gazette write-up here.
David Skok, the CEO of The Logic, a Canadian business publication, said the newsletters most at risk are the ones built on other people's work. If your newsletter is mostly a collection of links to what someone else wrote, he asked what value you're adding that's your own. If it's original and something only your team can do, he said people still want it.
Anna Jeys, who runs audience at Reach, the UK publisher behind the Mirror and the Express, said her team is going through their newsletters and asking which parts could be summarized. For the parts that could, they're looking at how to do something different, and she said a lot of the answer is the connection with the reader.
What a summary can't replace
Think about why you read the newsletters you love. It's usually not because they're the only place to get that information. It's because of the person writing it, the way they explain things and the stories they tell.
Jeys said personality-driven newsletters do well when they give readers something they can't get somewhere else, like a reporter who's actually at the game with information no one else has, or a tone of voice people come back for.
A summary can tell someone what you said. It can't give them your story, your results, your opinion or the feeling that a real person is talking to them. Those are the parts to put more of in your newsletter.
For creators, this is good news. Most of us aren't competing on breaking news anyway. We're competing on what we know, what we've tried and who we are.
How I think about my own newsletters.
My Creator's MBA newsletter goes out four times a week, and each issue has a job. The Wednesday issue is about AI, and it's built around something I actually built or used that week. A summary could tell you I built a skill, but the steps and how it went are why people open it.
HobbyScool works the same way. The Sunday newsletter, The Creative Corner, starts with a teaching section about crafting and then points to one of our offers. When I had AI pull the last 90 days of numbers on that list, the Sunday newsletters averaged a 3.24% click rate. The promotional emails for our membership averaged 1.09%. The emails that taught something got about three times the clicks of the emails that only sold something.
That tells me the teaching part of the newsletter is what keeps people coming back. A summary could say "this week's project is a paper book," but people want to see the pictures and the steps, and they click through to get them.
I teach newsletter structure with my Mini Magazine Method. It's a simple setup where your newsletter has the same three to five sections every issue, like a small magazine, so readers know what's coming. When you set it up, at least one of those sections should be something only you can write.
Parts of a newsletter that are easy to summarize
- A list of links to other people's articles with a one-line description
- News that everyone else in your industry is also sending
- General tips that someone could find in any search
Parts of a newsletter that are hard to summarize
- What happened in your business this week, with real numbers
- Something you built, tested or changed, and how it went
- Your opinion on something in your industry
- Your readers' replies, questions and wins
- Behind-the-scenes looks at how you run things
Curated newsletters still work if you're the reason
If you run a link roundup, don't panic. Jeys said link digests are still a big share of Reach's newsletters because people keep using them. Her read was that people want a digest picked by someone they trust.
George Monaghan, the newsletters editor at The New Statesman, described it well. He said a website homepage can be overwhelming, and a link list from an editor you trust is like having someone who knows what you like pick for you. He compared a homepage to a wine list without a sommelier.
So if you curate, be the sommelier. Tell people why you picked each link, what you think about it and who it's for. That's the part a summary can't do for you.
Your newsletter can help you show up in AI search too
There's another side to this. Christopher Sopher, the CEO of Letterhead, said more publishers are asking how to use their newsletter content to show up in AI tools. Newsletter writing is often a little different from what's on a website, so it can fill gaps.
For creators, the simple version is to make sure your best issues also live on the web. Kit lets you publish your broadcasts as posts, and you can also turn a strong issue into a blog post. That gives ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI answers something to find when someone asks about your topic.
What to do this week
Pull up your last four newsletters and go through them with one question: which parts could a two-line summary replace? Then look at what's left, because that's the part your readers can only get by opening your email and reading it.
- If most of the issue could be summarized, add one section every week that's only yours, like a story, a number or something you built.
- If you curate links, add a sentence on each one about why you picked it.
- Ask readers to reply, and share some of those replies in the next issue.
- Pick your best issue from the last month and publish it somewhere on the web.
Using AI without losing your voice
There's a funny side to this, because a lot of us are also using AI to help write our newsletters. I do too. The way I think about it, AI can handle a lot of the work around your newsletter, like pulling your numbers, drafting from your notes and repurposing an issue into social posts. The ideas, the stories and the opinions still have to come from you.
That's what my kickoff session at the AI Newsletter Summit covers. It's called Write It, Grow It, Get Paid: Where Does Your Newsletter Need AI First?, and it's live on Tuesday, October 27 at noon Eastern. The whole summit is free.
Tomorrow's post is the last one in this series, and it's about why people pay more for a newsletter with a real person behind it.
Where does your newsletter need AI first?
That's my kickoff session at the AI Newsletter Summit on Tuesday, October 27 at noon ET. Come figure out where AI helps and where your own voice has to stay. Registration is free.
Save your seat →Frequently asked.
Will AI email summaries reduce newsletter readership?
They can for some newsletters. Google and Apple can now summarize emails, so readers can get the gist without reading the whole thing. Newsletters that mostly round up other people's links are the easiest to replace with a summary.
What kind of newsletters are safe from AI summaries?
Newsletters with original material, like your own results, stories, opinions and the things you built. A summary can tell someone what you said, but it can't replace the reason they follow you in the first place.
Are curated link newsletters dead?
No. Reach said link digests are still a big part of what its readers use, because people want a list picked by someone they trust. What helps is adding why you picked each link and what you think about it.
How do I make my newsletter harder to summarize?
Put more of yourself in it. Share what happened in your business with real numbers, give your opinion, show what you built, and include your readers' replies and questions. Those are the parts people want to read in full.
Can my newsletter help me show up in AI search?
It can if your issues also live on the web. Publishers are asking how to use newsletter content to show up in AI tools, and posting your issues or turning them into blog posts gives AI search something to find and cite.
Dr. Destini Copp helps digital product creators build sustainable, systems-based businesses through the Creator Growth Flywheel framework. She's the founder of Creator's MBA and HobbyScool, and has been teaching online business strategy for over a decade. Learn more →
