X launched a new AI article summary feature, which will enable users to tap on a Grok “Summarize” button at the top of any native X Article to get a listing of the key points from the piece.
The option will provide a simple overview of the essential notes, a TL;DR of the article, which will give X users another way to consume long-form content in the app.
But hang on, doesn’t that go against the whole point of X adding long-form articles in the first place, in that they prompt users to spend more time reading in the app?
Yes, yes it does, but X’s head of product Nikita Bier says that his job is to increase unregretted time spent, and as such “every tap, every word must be intentional and valuable to the user.”
“If you get sucked into bad content, that’s time taken away from a conversation you could be having elsewhere,” Bier explained in an X post.
So now, you can read longer articles via X’s native article feature if you want, or you can get AI to read it for you, while you can also listen to an AI-generated audio version of the article as well.
Is that a good thing?
Well, as Bier notes, it puts more control in the hands of users, though whether you want to trust AI to understand the nuance of a long-form article is another question altogether. But assuming you do trust that AI will get the facts right, adding more ways for users to engage with content is a good thing, enabling more choice.
It also aligns with modern engagement behaviors, and engagement on X in particular, in terms of focusing on brevity. But with X also looking to court journalists, and get more long-form content posted to the app, it does feel somewhat counterintuitive and unnecessary as a function.
Originally only available to X Premium+ subscribers, X made its long-form articles option available to all paying users in January, as part of an expanded push to get more long-form content in the app. That still means that only a fraction of X’s user base can post full-length articles directly to the app, but Bier reported on March 6 that the amount of long-form posts published on X has increased 18x in the last three months, making it one of the fastest-growing products on the platform.
Of course, X also juiced articles growth with its $1 million prize for the best article in January. But nonetheless, more X articles are being posted, which could make this a valuable addition for time-poor X users.
Automated summaries does feel like a counter step based on its broader articles strategy, or at least what I understand of it. But maybe it will help to increase engagement and interaction with long-form content creators.
