Ask The Australian
AI-powered search built for business journalism.
Overview
Ask The Australian is a generative AI search experience built for the Business section of The Australian. Rather than relying solely on traditional search results, it combines AI-generated answers with relevant journalism from across the masthead. Users can ask a question and get a direct, sourced response alongside related articles, helping them find insight faster without having to sift through multiple search results.
The challenge
The Australian has a highly engaged readership, and they're not shy about sharing feedback. People have strong opinions, high expectations, and know exactly when something isn't working. One of those friction points was content discovery. Valuable journalism was often getting buried, and the existing search experience wasn't helping readers find it.
Prior to the project, a survey of over 500 subscribers found that faster, smarter content discovery was the top personalisation priority, with users ranking the ability to search for topics ahead of other personalisation features. This helped validate the case for building an AI-powered search experience.
This was particularly important for two subscriber groups.
Nation Builders
Business leaders and entrepreneurs who need reliable information quickly. Skew younger: 24% Gen Z, 36% Millennials.
Older Affluents
Experienced investors after detailed, fact-based research without sifting through pages. Predominantly Gen X, aged 45–65.
At the same time, AI-powered search was quickly becoming part of the media landscape. The opportunity wasn't just to improve discovery, but to do it in a way that felt trustworthy, useful, and distinctly The Australian.
Constraints
- The Australian has a longstanding brand identity. The experience needed to feel current without feeling unfamiliar.
- Legal guardrails ruled out personal financial advice, predictions and personally identifiable information, with a persistent disclaimer required on all AI outputs.
- The first iteration was scoped to web only.
- Features that weren't technically feasible within the timeline were documented for future iterations.
Defining the experience
One of the most important decisions made early on was that this wasn't a chatbot. The goal was to help people find answers quickly, understand where those answers came from, and keep reading. That distinction shaped everything from the information architecture to the interaction model and the way content was presented.
Gen AI search, not a chatbot
A chatbot has a conversation. Gen AI search generates a single, direct answer from a trusted source and gets you on your way. No back and forth, no open ended dialogue.
Built on verified journalism
Rather than drawing from the open web, Ask The Australian pulls answers from The Australian's archive. Every response is sourced, cited and grounded in credible reporting.
Initial experience mapping
From there we mapped out the initial experience, defining who the users were, how they would discover the feature, what they would encounter and where they could end up.
Early concepts
With the brief locked and the flow mapped, I moved into the first round of designs. The core journey covered three things: getting a direct AI-generated answer, seeing the sources behind it, and surfacing related articles to keep reading. The challenge was making this feel intuitive within The Australian's established brand.
Testing flow
Before usability sessions began, a testing flow was mapped out to define the exact paths participants would move through. This gave the research a clear structure and ensured we were testing the right things.
What we learned
A Senior UX Designer ran one on one usability and discoverability sessions with subscribers from both target audiences. I wasn't facilitating, but I was involved in synthesising the findings and translating them into design decisions.
Across sessions, one theme came through consistently: users preferred the AI feature over traditional keyword search. It saved time, surfaced content they wouldn't have found otherwise, and felt more useful for the kind of time-sensitive, news-driven queries The Australian's readers actually have.
Key Findings
Trust & accuracy
Users trusted the AI because it drew from The Australian's journalism rather than the open web. But trust was fragile. Summaries that felt incomplete eroded confidence quickly.
Visual market data
Users wanted charts, graphs and customisable timeframes, not descriptive text. If it couldn't be built to that standard, it shouldn't be there.
Source transparency
Sources were valued, but users wanted clearer attribution linked within the summary itself, not listed separately below.
Related prompts
Suggested follow-up prompts were a standout. Users saw them as a natural way to keep exploring without having to rephrase their question.
Entry point discoverability
The top banner was noticed immediately. The persistent floating icon on its own didn't clearly communicate what the feature was, which directly informed the V2 entry point.
Personalisation expectations
The personalised greeting created assumptions the product couldn't meet. Since a logged-in state wasn't in scope, we removed it to avoid setting false expectations.
Final user flow
With the research synthesised, the finalised user flow was mapped to reflect the updated experience before moving into V2 designs. This captured the full end to end journey, from how users discovered the feature through to the different response states and exit points.
Iteration & final designs
Research findings shaped the direction of V2 in a few clear ways.
The market data section was removed entirely. Users wanted real-time, visual, interactive data and the technical scope couldn't deliver that. Shipping a text-only version to a financially sophisticated audience would have undermined the trust the feature was trying to build, so we cut it and flagged it for a future iteration.
The entry point was refined based on how users actually behaved in testing. The original outlined button was easy to miss, so it was replaced with a filled orange pill with the AI sparkle icon, making the feature more discoverable without being intrusive.
V2 also added coverage for edge cases that weren't in the initial designs, including partial responses, negative responses, and a feedback flow, giving the experience a more considered and complete feel.
Reflection
Ask The Australian launched in April 2026, marking News Corp Australia's first AI-powered search experience and giving Business subscribers a faster, more connected way to find insight.
What worked
Getting designs in front of real subscribers and feeding those insights back into the product helped us move beyond assumptions. Trust is everything when designing AI products, and that came directly from listening to users.
What's next
Richer source attribution, market visualisations and personalised discovery experiences all came through in user feedback and are the natural next steps for the feature.