AI startup newsrooms.ai is acquiring Trending Topics, the leading Austrian tech media platform founded by Jakob Steinschaden and Bastian Kellhofer.
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 large language models tailored for media companies and corporate communications.
“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.
The core technology of newsrooms.ai, spearheaded by CTO Matteo Rosoli, is what “Generative Engine Optimisation” (GEO) — a new 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.
“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, 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.
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.
Financial details of the acquisition have not been disclosed.