The Newsletter Is Dead. Here’s How To Survive AI Agents | Dan Shipper | 152

What happens to your newsletter when the first thing to read it isn't a person, but an AI agent? For anyone who has built a business on email, that shift is coming a lot faster than most of us expect. I sat down with Dan Shipper, co-founder and CEO of Every, a company that writes about AI, builds AI software, and gets to test the models before they're released. Dan has interviewed Sam Altman and is one of the people closest to the cutting edge that I know. We get into how good AI has become at using your computer, why Dan thinks the newsletter as we know it is dead, why OpenAI or Anthropic will likely build a new kind of inbox, and the one number his team is chasing right now that they might stop chasing soon. Dan also shares why, despite all the change, he's so optimistic about where this is going. If email sits at the heart of your business, I think you'll get a lot out of this conversation. Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 01:22 The AI workflow every creator should set up 02:43 How Dan writes by talking to his AI 04:21 Why computer use is suddenly so good 05:12 How an agent reordered Dan's 8,000-word story 07:31 Turning an editor's taste into an AI skill 09:44 How to build a skill without writing it yourself 10:49 Using evals to make your skills better over time 12:45 Should you go deep on one AI platform? 15:29 Nathan's AI workflow for following up after events 18:24 Why Dan is so optimistic about AI 20:55 The three stages of adapting to new technology 23:59 Ambition in the age of AI 25:30 Why creators should stay diversified 26:01 Building an app for your audience in a weekend 27:08 Why every creator can now have a feed 29:08 How Dan uses custom feeds to run Every 31:06 Everyone can now work like Ryan Holiday 32:08 Why AI curation hasn't caught up with creation 32:51 Frontier alerts and writing for each reader 34:29 Why Every is hiring more engineers than ever 37:02 Why Dan says the newsletter is dead 40:21 When your open rate drops to zero 41:05 Seth Godin and being missed when you don't publish 42:27 Why OpenAI and Claude will build a new inbox 43:43 What actually replaces email? 46:26 How Dan is positioning Every for what's next 47:25 Why Every may stop chasing email signups 48:35 Pushing content through MCP servers 49:52 What creators should do to get ready 51:59 Why quality matters more than ever 54:00 What a high-quality audience has done for Dan 55:21 Why Nathan is underusing his AI tools 56:44 The Eight Levels of AI 58:02 How Every makes money 58:53 Splitting Every into frontier and product teams 1:01:56 Pirates vs architects 1:02:41 Kit's App Store and the cost of experiments 1:03:54 How Every launches experiments it won't support 1:06:04 Dan's hot take on AI and jobs 1:07:23 What Andrew Carnegie's story teaches us 1:08:07 What Dan is reading right now 1:10:24 Where to start with Every 1:11:05 Final thoughts If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe, share it with your friends, and leave a review. I read every single one. Learn more about the podcast: https://nathanbarry.com/show Follow Nathan: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nathanbarry LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanbarry X: https://twitter.com/nathanbarry YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thenathanbarryshow Website: https://nathanbarry.com Kit: https://kit.com Follow Dan: X: https://x.com/danshipper LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danshipper Website: https://danshipper.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EveryInc/videos Featured in this episode: Kit: https://www.kit.com Every: https://every.to How Codex Happened: https://every.to/p/how-codex-happened The Eight Levels of AI Adoption: https://every.to/guides/the-eight-levels-of-ai-adoption After Automation: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/after-automation Highlights: 02:43 Why Dan writes by talking out loud to his AI 08:35 Turning 40,000 copy edits into a "Kate pass" 21:17 The agency rupture everyone feels with AI 37:29 Why the newsletter as we know it is dead 47:25 The one number Every might stop chasing