BoSacks Speaks Out: AI Is Now Infrastructure, Not an Accessory

Let’s stop calling AI an upgrade. It’s not a plugin. It’s plumbing. AI is now core infrastructure for magazine publishing, editorial, design, audience, revenue, ops. If you’re still treating it like a side hustle or a novelty, you’re already behind. Successful publishers aren’t dabbling. They’re deploying. Across departments. Across workflows. Across strategy. AI isn’t a toy. It’s a competency. And if your team doesn’t have it, your relevance has a shelf life.

Editorial: From Curiosity to Core Function

Editorial teams now use AI to accelerate the entire content lifecycle. Research, fact-checking, slug lists, competitive analysis, trend forecasting, it’s all in play. Condé Nast and Time aren’t waiting for permission. They’re building editorial calendars with AI-generated intelligence baked in. Human editors still steer the ship, but they’re sailing faster and deeper with machine assistance.

Lifestyle magazines use AI to scrape social media trends, surfacing angles and sources before competitors even know what’s bubbling. AI handles the grunt work. Humans do the journalism. That’s the deal.

Design: Catalyst, Not Replacement

Art departments treat AI like a creative catalyst. Mood boards, palettes, concept sketches, generated in minutes, not days. Trend data feeds the machine. Designers refine the output. Original photography and illustration still matter. Brand authenticity still matters. But speed and iteration now come with a silicon boost.

Hearst has already formalized AI design workflows. They log tool usage. They track modifications. They know what’s synthetic and what’s not. That’s how you scale creativity without losing control.

Fashion mags use AI to generate visual inspiration. The creative team takes it from there. It’s not cheating. It’s chess with better pieces.

Audience: Personalization at Scale

Audience teams embed AI into personalization engines, churn reduction, and campaign optimization. Recommendation systems like The Atlantic’s boost engagement and retention by spotting patterns human analysts miss. AI models optimize newsletter topics, subject lines, and send times. Strategists focus on voice and positioning. The machine handles the math.

This isn’t about replacing intuition. It’s about amplifying it with data that doesn’t sleep.

Revenue: Smarter, Faster, Sharper

Ad sales teams use AI for lead qualification, proposal generation, and performance prediction. Tools analyze client sectors, competitive behaviors, and campaign history. Sales teams pitch smarter. They forecast better. They close faster.

New York Magazine uses AI to find growth opportunities, target advertisers, and project outcomes. Trade publishers automate outreach and tailor ad packages to high-opportunity accounts. It’s not magic. It’s math with a mission.

The obstacle isn’t tech. It’s change management. Success comes from augmentation, not automation. Train your staff. Start with the curious. Reward the capable. Measure the outcomes. Skip the hype.

The Imperative: Literacy or Obsolescence

AI literacy is now the minimum requirement for survival in publishing. Not fluency. Not mastery. Literacy. If your team can’t use it, can’t explain it, can’t measure it, they’re not ready for what’s next.

This is infrastructure. Treat it like it. Build competency. Protect ethics. Move past the experimental phase. AI isn’t coming. It’s here. And it’s already reshaping the margins.