Macmillan kills AI assistant NOA after lavish launch
macmillan introduced and later killed ai chatbot noa, citing it as unhelpful, affecting employee experience.
in january 2024, macmillan publishers introduced noa, an ai chatbot developed by german software company chaptr, with a lavish party at their lower manhattan headquarters. employees were encouraged to use noa for tasks such as composing emails, drafting copy, and generating ideas, but found it unhelpful and unreliable. in october 2025, macmillan announced that chaptr would be sunsetting noa. since then, the company has been attempting to integrate google gemini into their publishing process, with mixed results. macmillan's approach to ai is focused on employee awareness and education.