Austrian AI startup newsrooms.ai announced today they will be acquiring Trending Topics, an Austrian tech media platform heavily involved in Europe’s startup and tech innovation space over the past decade.
newsrooms.ai believes this merger of AI technology and publishing expertise will create a “one-of-a-kind company in Europe“, poised to set new standards in content creation and distribution for the AI era. Financial details of the acquisition have not been disclosed.
“After search engines and social media, AI is the next major disruption of the media world of the 21st century. We want to be at the forefront of this development,” says Bastian Kellhofer, Co-founder of newsrooms.ai and Trending Topics.
Newsrooms.ai was originally incubated within the media house of Trending Topics and spun off in 2024 with its own developer team and investor Hermann Futter (CEO of Compass Group and investor in KickScale, Jentis, among others). Under the leadership of CEO Erek Stoisser, the company has developed market-ready, AI-driven SaaS for automated content production based on modern LLMs, tailored for media companies and corporate communications.
The core technology of newsrooms.ai, spearheaded by CTO Matteo Rosoli, is ‘Generative Engine Optimization’ (GEO) – an approach to optimising online content for AI search engines and chatbots such as ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity. GEO places a strong focus on linguistic quality, European data processing, and unique editorial style for both media and corporate clients.
Prior to the official launch, more than 1,000 articles were already being generated each month using newsroom.ai.
“Generative AI isn’t just a helpful add-on, but the new foundation of digital communication. Newsrooms.ai and Trending Topics under one roof is a killer combination. We’re embracing the rapid AI development and anticipating what’s inevitably coming for many other companies,” says Co-founder Jakob Steinschaden.
The roadmap includes expansion into audio, image, and video content, as well as personalised AI morning briefings and Predictive Communication Intelligence (PCI). The vision is to build an all-in-one platform that supports everything from information sourcing and content production to publishing and analytics.
“Efficiency can be bought. But great language is priceless,” says Erek Stoisser, CEO of newsrooms.ai.”We want to help Europe develop its own artificial intelligence infrastructure that values linguistic diversity as a meaningful cultural asset. Our mission is to support technological sovereignty and data security for the continent.“
Under its new ownership, Trending Topics will continue its coverage of the tech industry, with an increasing focus on AI. It will also reportedly become one of the first media brands globally to be co-produced with AI at its core. Founders Jakob Steinschaden and Bastian Kellhofer will remain on board, hold equity in newsrooms.ai, and play central roles in product development, strategy, and business development.
“I’m fascinated by the technology behind newsrooms.ai. It offers an impressive glimpse into the future of publishing. That’s my personal reason for believing in the team and investing in the company,” says investor Hermann Futter.
