Newsletter platform beehiiv adds AI website building, creator tools in major expansion

Summary

Newsletter platform beehiiv announced a massive expansion to its platform on Thursday, including offering real-time analytics and AI website creation, among other things. In a video announcing the release, Tyler Denk, the co-founder and CEO of Beehiiv, said that what makes newsletter platforms powerful is ownership. “Owning your audience, distribution, brand, and even your revenue potential,” he said. “In the age of AI and algorithms. Ownership isn’t just nice to have, it’s essential.” The hope is to further give creators (and journalists) more control — and opportunities — to expand and grow their businesses on the platform. The full product expansion includes: Allowing creators to sell digital products, such as ebooks, without beehiiv receiving commissions. Next year, creators will soon be able to sell courses and merchandise. A feature that lets creators build websites using AI without the use of sophisticated code or developers. A version product was actually launched a few months ago and followed Beehiiv’s acquisition of the AI website builder Typedream last year. Thursday’s announcement revealed the product now lets users build full websites by simply chatting with AI — or, vibe code a website. However, users don’t need to simply talk in words to the AI; they can also drag and drop images, for example, upload images or screenshots of other people’s websites to the AI, and have it recreate them. The ability to host and release podcasts on a creator’s respective beehiive platform. This lets creators put their podcasts, newsletters, and websites under one platform, rather than having three separate ones. Real-time analytics to track engagement and traffic, in addition to a breakdown of what channels drive the most users Offering “link in bio,” so creators can link to other digital platforms, as well as their own beehiiv creations, without having to use a third-party link in bio company. Offering professionally designed website templates, so that the website and n...