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How to Build an iPhone-Obsessed Chatbot, with Joanna Stern

Would you take gadget advice from a chatbot? How about one trained by a tech expert?

This week on The Media Copilot podcast, I'm thrilled to talk to Joanna Stern, the Senior Personal Technology Columnist at the Wall Street Journal. Joanna and I used to see each other quite often at various tech events when I was the Tech Editor at Mashable. She's known for her clever tech videos and deep reporting on how the titans of Silicon Valley are altering our lives in big and small ways.

Lately, though, she's making a name for herself by being an AI innovator. Normally this time of year she'd have a big review of the latest iPhones, but instead she gave the world Joannabot: an AI-powered chatbot created the Journal tech team and Joanna herself, designed to give readers all the advice they could ever want about buying the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro — in Joanna’s unique voice (or a close approximation).

As soon as I saw Joannabot, I knew I wanted to talk to Joanna about it. Not just because it's a wildly interesting AI experiment from a major publisher, but also because I've been dying to get Joanna's thoughts on the big picture of AI: how far it's come, what is on the horizon, and how it's changed the way she does her job.

Mission: accomplished. It was a really fun conversation, and I hope you listen till the end, where I squeeze out of her what she really thinks of Apple Intelligence Apple's upcoming feature upgrade that will add AI to the iPhone experience — and how that will change what we think of as "consumer AI."

NOTE: This podcast was recorded prior to Meta Connect, where Meta unveiled its Orion AI-powered smart glasses.

As always, if you liked this conversation, I’d appreciate it if you could follow the show on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast app that you want. Also, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a rating or review — it really does help the show. And if you’re on YouTube, don’t forget to “like” the video and subscribe to the channel! 🔔

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The Media Copilot
The Media Copilot
Weekly converatsions with journalists, media executives, and fascinating people on how AI is changing media, journalism, and the news.