General AI
Macmillan's AI Assistant NOA Fails and Is Killed
WIRED AIhigh confidence
Why it matters
- →Enterprise AI tools often fail in creative industries due to hallucination risks and workflow misalignment.
- →Staff resistance highlights the gap between corporate efficiency mandates and professional quality standards.
- →The shutdown signals a potential pivot from proprietary AI solutions to generalist models for internal operations.
Macmillan Publishers has discontinued its internal AI assistant, NOA, developed by Chaptr, after employees reported the tool was unreliable and rarely used. Introduced in January 2024 with a celebratory launch, NOA was intended to help staff with email drafting, marketing research, and performance review goals. By October 2025, the company announced the tool's sunset, citing its lack of utility. Macmillan is now exploring integration with Google Gemini for business tasks, though leadership denies directives to use AI for core publishing processes like evaluating submissions.
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Earlier coverage that leads up to this article, and what followed. Lines connect each piece to the closest one after it, converging here.
How we got here
- 1AI Projects and Startups Face High Failure Rates
TechCrunch AI · September 15, 2026 · Background
- 2Apple adds AI assistant to Pages, Keynote, Numbers
The Verge AI · October 27, 2026 · Background
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