Gagging for it

Good morning, you glorious beasts.

We have an indecent proposal for you.

If you’re working on a cool project/business/startup, and want to reach 2500+ switched-on U.K. professionals…

Just reply to this email.

— Ed & Joe

MEDIA
The Daily Express is killing it

According to Press Gazette’s monthly ranking of top news sites, the right-wing newspaper has grown its audience by 31% since June last year. 

And it might be because of AI

Which the owners, Reach plc, have been using to write articles since March 2023. 

It’s saved them bags of time. And money, allowing them to slash the biggest number of journalist roles in decades.

They’ve slashed publication time, too

Their AI tools – some built in-house, others sourced elsewhere – automatically crawl first-party data sources as soon as they’re published, turning them into online content. 

One tool, Guten, has essentially slashed the time it takes to publish breaking news from 9 minutes to just 90 seconds. 

Gluten has already generated 1 billion pages across the network, and supports nearly a quarter of its total output. 

Reach plc rules Britannia

90% of the fastest-growing British sites are all owned by Reach plc, from Surrey Live to Good Housekeeping. 

Meanwhile, the Mail Online invested in AI about 20 months too late, acquiring an AI startup in November 2024. 

No wonder it’s seen its audience decline year on year. It breaks my heart to hear it.

AI
British employers are basically Luddites

According to a global survey of 46,000 employees by the recruitment company, Hays, which found that British businesses are woefully falling behind our sincere and excitable American cousins in AI adoption. 

Just 37% of British employers provide AI training

Which is pretty shoddy, chaps, when you consider that 50% of American employers are providing training in the dark arts of AI. 

Worse still, employees are gagging for it, 89% of whom are willing to be taught. 

We’re too risk-averse

According to the study’s researchers. Which makes sense. We’re the nation that lost a global empire. 

The same risk-aversion applies to stocks and shares. Brits are the least interested in investing of any G7 nation. 

Americans are more experimental

Excitable chaps that they are. 

Companies that mispronounce water are far more willing to integrate experimental new tools at scale, invest in a high-stakes environment, and suffer the consequences. 

AGRICULTURE
Another vertical farming startup is for sale

UK-based Vertical Future put up its ‘For Sale’ sign after posting a £10 million pre-tax loss.

It’s not the only one

Vertical Future comes in a long line of bankrupt vertical farming startups, from InFarm to Bowery. 

US-based Plenty, after partnering with Walmart to grow salad, stopped operations because of spiralling energy costs in California.  

Vertical farms are expensive

At least, initially, up to ten times more expensive to build than a traditional greenhouse. 

Then there are the high energy costs to consider, from all the lighting, sensors, freight elevators and camera systems. 

Plus, vertical farms require skilled technicians, not migrant workers treated like slaves. 

To break even, they need to scale fast and sell at mass-market prices. Which obviously isn’t easy. 

NEWS BITES
This just in…

• 💧🤑 108 different entities own the River Dart, which is 47 miles long and runs through the quaint Devonshire countryside. An eighth of these “entities” are companies based in offshore tax havens. This comes after a study found that 96% of British rivers aren’t open to the public, which makes leisurely riverbank strolls rather difficult. 

• 📶 💨 Altnet customers get more speed for less money, according to a study of nearly 4,000 customers by Broadband Genie. This means that customers who use a broadband provider that builds its own network – and not just latch on to Open Reach or Virgin Media – could be getting download speeds of 440Mbps for £28 p/m, not 227 Mbps for £39 p/m.

• 🇬🇧 🌊 There are more jellyfish in British waters, according to the Marine Conservation Society, with a 32% increase in sightings between 2023 and 2024. According to the marine researcher Abigail McQuatters-Gollop (her real name), it’s because the water is getting warmer thanks to climate change, which has been besting us since the Industrial Revolution. 

• 🏥 📉 PTSD costs the British economy £40 billion a year, according to researchers at the University of Birmingham. This includes everything from substance abuse treatment to productivity loss, and the cost – £14,780 per person p/a – will only get bigger, as PTSD diagnoses are increasing. 

• 💸🦈 60% of the world’s hottest stocks are London-listed. British businesses are woefully underfunded when it comes to valuation relative to earnings: London’s FTSE 100 trades 13% less than the Euro Stoxx and 41% less than America’s S&P 500. Analysts reckon that North American acquisitions of British firms will only increase. You glorious beasts: the sharks are coming for dinner.