The Information Rebuilds Its App to Own More of the Subscriber's Day

The Information rolled out a rebuilt version of its mobile app this week, and founder Jessica Lessin used a note to subscribers to explain the thinking behind it. The short version: the publication wants its app to fit however a reader prefers to consume its journalism, whether that means reading, watching, listening, or asking an AI to dig through the archive.

The relaunch pulls together several products the company has been building over the past year. TITV, its daily live video show hosted by reporters and featuring newsmaker interviews, debuted in July 2025 and airs weekdays at 10 a.m. Pacific, per Axios. The outlet introduced Deep Research, an AI tool that answers questions using more than a decade of its own reporting, the week before TITV launched, Axios reported at the time. The new app puts both alongside audio versions of every article, breaking news alerts, and a personalized "For You" feed built around the companies and topics a subscriber follows, according to the company's App Store listing.

Lessin also said the app learns from individual usage over time. In her subscriber note, she described using Deep Research to prep for meetings some mornings and catching up on TITV clips on others, with the app adjusting to those patterns.

A retention play at a premium price point

The Information charges $399 a year for a standard subscription, with a Pro tier at $999 that adds proprietary data, so churn is expensive. At those prices, an occasional must-read scoop isn't enough to justify renewal on its own. Daily utility is. The rebuilt app reads as an attempt to make the product part of a subscriber's routine in multiple contexts: the commute, the pre-meeting scramble, the lunchtime video check-in.

There's a clear industry pattern here. Bloomberg, The Athletic, and other high-priced subscription products have all moved toward the same model, where the brand shows up in enough moments of the day that canceling starts to feel like removing a tool rather than a publication.

The AI piece is the most interesting part strategically. Plenty of publishers see AI summaries as a threat to their business. The Information is going the other direction and treating its archive as raw material for a product nobody else can build, since Deep Research draws on reporting that sits behind its own paywall. Lessin told Axios last summer that video and inside access to the newsroom were things subscribers had been asking for, and the AI tool follows the same logic: give the most engaged readers more ways to use what they're already paying for. It also raises the cost of switching in a way a rival can't easily copy.

The personalization push carries some tension for a prestige outlet. Part of what readers pay for at a publication like The Information, which built its reputation on deeply reported stories about companies like Apple, Meta, and Google, is editorial judgment, the sense that someone decided what mattered today. A feed shaped by individual habits can chip away at that shared front page. The company will have to figure out where curation ends and the algorithm begins.

Lessin closed the note by calling the relaunch a starting point, with more improvements planned in the coming months. Given that the company shipped a live video show, an AI research tool, and a rebuilt app inside of a year, that seems like a safe bet.