Upday: What an AI news experiment reveals about the future of Brand Identity

A recent dinner conversation with a friend took a turn toward the future of media when he brought up a news app powered entirely by AI. We found ourselves debating whether this signaled a permanent shift in how we consume news or merely another app destined for digital obscurity. Curiosity won out. I downloaded Upday that night and made a habit of checking it daily. That experiment sparked a broader question: What does the rise of AI aggregators mean for brand identity, and what can modern brand management learn from the media industry's turmoil?

Upday – the story

Upday was launched in 2015 as a joint venture between German media company Axel Springer and Samsung. It came pre-installed on millions of Samsung Galaxy smartphones across Europe. It used a mix of algorithms (to tailor stories to user habits) and a large team of human journalists across hubs like Berlin, Milan, and London who wrote short summaries for breaking News. By 2023, it boasted over 25 million monthly active users across 34 countries[1]. In 2023 Axel Springer terminated its pre-installation contract with Samsung. Samsung rolled out its own service, Samsung News.[2] Axel Springer repurposed the Upday brand into an AI-powered trend news platform and relaunched it in 2025/26.[3]  Algorithms scan thousands of global news outlets and social media feeds to detect hot topics or trending events. Generative AI tools automatically draft concise headlines and summaries based on those trending topics. Instead of large editorial desks writing the snippets, automated pipelines generate the content, constantly signed by ‘this article has been produced by AI’[4]. For the broader media industry, Upday is seen less as a brand-new news product and more as Axel Springer's live laboratory. 

Upday is an aggregator. Think of branded news media as a fine-dining restaurant—they buy raw ingredients, employ specialized chefs, and craft unique dishes from scratch. Upday is like a food directory: it doesn't cook any food, but it quickly scans every restaurant in town, tells you what everyone is ordering, and serves you a quick preview to help you decide where to eat. Aggregators work on a much lower cost base, as they do not need any jounalisitic work. Their core competence is fast personalised assembly of existing news.

A scientific angle to the Upday Story

Recent empirical research and communication theories from leading journals provide scientific enlightment to the Upday Story. Three challenges for media players arise:

Aggregators have to overcome the AI credibility gap

A national panel study published in 2025 demonstrated a clear credibility hierarchy. Purely AI-generated news was ranked lowest in credibility, whereas human-AI hybrid reporting (human journalists using AI tools) was rated as trustworthy as pure human reporting.[5] Readers reject automated news generation not because of technology aversion, but because AI lacks contextual understanding and interpretive judgment: the core markers of professional journalism.[6]

Aggregators have to win the relationship game

Research analyzing cross-national datasets from the Reuters Institute Digital News Report demonstrates that aggregator news consumption correlates negatively with overall news trust.[7] Aggregators shift gatekeeping power from professional journalists to opaque algorithms, which reduces perceived editorial accountability.[8] Cross-national findings show that when readers consume summarized news on aggregators, they suffer from low brand recall. The platform captures the relationship, while the primary publisher’s brand identity is dissolved into the background.[9]

Branded news media have to win in radical brand identiy differention

In an era where aggregators can generate endless streams of generic news slop in seconds, a strong brand identity is no longer just a marketing asset for traditional publishers: it is a survival mechanism. When news becomes a free, hyper-abundant commodity, readers stop looking for information itself – they search trust, perspective, and origin. David Aaker’s Brand Identity System[10]defines a brand’s Core Identity, ‘the central, timeless essence of a brand that remains constant as the brand travels into new markets and product categories.’ Branded news media must be radically sharp and clear on it’s brand core identity (Eg. Journalistic Origin: lived by scoops and field work, journalist-led storytelling (journalists become the ‘asset’), radical methodology transparency, extreme local relevance). Branded news portals cannot out-play aggregatory; they must pursue a differentiation strategy[11] grounded in original investigation, exclusive access, and distinct human personality.

Brand Futurist Thoughts

The media ecosystem has been in a state of continuous disruption for years, operating in what seems like permanent survival mode. Now, the rapid rise of AI-driven news aggregator, exemplified by platform like Upday, presents a new existential challenge. This constant crisis in the media sector offers a masterclass for business leaders. 
Senior brand managers across all industries can learn valuable lessons about agility, digitization, and real-time consumer alignment from modern newsrooms, particularly in how they track audience feedback and dynamically adapt content on the fly.

Aggregators are not a passing trend; they are a permanent fixture of the digital landscape. For traditional, branded news outlets, this reality leaves only two strategic paths: a) Win the brand differentiation game: Double down on unique identity, original investigation, human voice, and uncompromised trust or b) slowly fade into irrelevance: Allow content to become generic, middle-of-the-road, and easily replaced. Mediocrity is a death sentence in the digital age. Because AI-driven aggregators operate on near-zero marginal costs, traditional media companies cannot and should not try to compete on volume or speed. Trying to out-aggregate an algorithm is a battle branded outlets will always lose.

The media market is a learning case for what happens when a sector faces almost total digital commoditization. Every senior brand manager, regardless of industry, must proactively challenge their own brand strategy by asking three critical questions:

• Is our core brand identity resilient? Can it withstand surprise disruption from low-cost, tech-driven market entrants?

• Is our core brand identity radically sharp enough? Are we offering a distinct value proposition that customers cannot get anywhere else, or are we flirting with exchangeable mediocrity?

• Is our core brand identity lived internally? A strong brand is not just a marketing tagline. It must be deeply understood across the entire organization and consistently executed across every single consumer touchpoint.

If you want to contribute or have any reflection on the above, please do not hesitate to comment.

Key Takeaway:

Differentiate radically against commoditization: In markets flooded with generic, low-cost alternatives, brands cannot compete on volume or speed. They must double down on a sharp, non-replicable core identity group.

‘Mediocrity is a death sentence in the digital age’

[1] Retrieved July 2026, https://grokipedia.com/page/upday#:~:text=Upday%20(stylized%20as%20upday)%20is%20a%20free,countries%20with%20localized%20editions%20in%20multiple%20languages.

[2] PressGazetta, April 29, 2025;  https://pressgazette.co.uk/platforms/samsung-rolls-out-new-default-news-app-in-uk/

[3] Tagesspiegel, Dezember 8, 2023;  https://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/springer-nachrichten-app-upday-bald-komplett-ki-basiert-10900777.html#:~:text=Die%20Nachrichten%2DApp%20Upday%20aus%20dem%20Verlagshaus%20Axel,das%20Medienhaus%20am%20Freitag%20in%20Berlin%20mit.

[4] PressGazetta, April 29, 2025;  https://pressgazette.co.uk/platforms/samsung-rolls-out-new-default-news-app-in-uk/

[5] Kotenidis, E., Kotsakis, R., & Veglis, A. (2025). Perception of automated news content by readers and professional journalists. Online Information Review, 49(5), 974-990.

[6] Identical findings as in the Brand Futuris Thoungt, Romance Rebellion, https://brand-futurist.com/blog-1-1

[7] Fletcher, R., & Park, S. (2017). The Impact of Trust in the News Media on Online News Consumption and Participation. Digital Journalism, 5, 1281–1299.

[8] Van der Velden, M., & Loecherbach, F. (2021). Epistemic Overconfidence in Algorithmic News Selection. Media and Communication, 9, 182–197.

[9] Kalogeropoulos, A., Fletcher, R., & Nielsen, R. K. (2019). News brand attribution in distributed environments: Do people know where they get their news? New Media & Society, 21(3), 583–601.

[10] Aaker, D. A., & Joachimsthaler, E. (2012). Brand leadership. Simon and Schuster.

[11] Porter, M. E. (2008). Competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance. simon and schuster.