I’ve been waiting for the first media use case of ChatGPT apps and last week it arrived by way of The Economist, specifically their graphs. 

It’s taken a while for something to launch and that’s because it can’t be text based. ChatGPT does that well without the need for an app. As we discussed in October, it needed something visual, which is why The Economist launched with examples such as the Zillow real estate app. 

The launch focuses on a single dataset: The Economist’s Trump approval tracker, which is already in front of the paywall. Users can connect the app inside ChatGPT, ask questions in natural language, and receive AI-generated responses supported by The Economist’s polling data and visualisations. 

I love the concept that users can interrogate data directly inside ChatGPT rather than navigating to a publisher Web site or app. There will be huge benefits here, especially if branding is done well. And even more so if users can activate subscriptions within ChatGPT — but that now seems a way off.

The user calls The Economist (@TheEconomist) and needs to ask specifically around the approval ratings for it to work.

I struggle to see this as a real use case because a consumer has to ask a very specific question to get a graph. But that’s not the point. This is a trusted brand running an experiment, not a wide scaled launch of all content going into an answer engine.

This is what I discovered. 

My first attempt brought up a text answer with a link out to the tracker. Possibly good for The Economist as it points back to owned and operated, but in reality the consumer has already requested the brand so it feels clunky.  

I asked a follow-up question, hoping that would be more successful, but that brought up regular chat. 

My third attempt was more specific, and the response combined AI-generated explanation with trusted publisher data and a visualisation. Bingo, the chart becomes part of the conversation rather than a stand-alone destination.

It’s a good step towards a multimedia response that is genuinely helpful to a consumer. The lesson here isn’t about Trump approval ratings. It’s that publishers are beginning to treat AI platforms as a product channel, not just a distribution channel.

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