James Purtill

James Purtill reports on how rapid shifts in technology reshape industries, media and everyday life, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence, digital platforms and the clean energy transition. He is a technology reporter with the ABC’s science team and works in long-form features and explainers as well as news analysis. He has more than fifteen years of reporting experience across print, radio and digital formats in multiple regions. That background across different mediums informs a style that combines accessible explanations with close attention to data, business models and social impact.

Artificial intelligence and the news business

A recurring line in Purtill’s coverage is how artificial intelligence is changing the economics and practice of journalism. He has examined experiments with AI-generated science articles, detailing how a major science publisher used a GPT-4-based system to produce explainer pieces and the resulting backlash from journalists and co-founders. In that work he sets out both the technical design of retrieval-augmented models and the ethical questions around training on existing editorial content.

He has also reported extensively on search companies’ AI features and their impact on news traffic. In one piece he explains how Google’s AI Overviews place generative responses above traditional search results, using data from Australian news sites to show declines in search referrals and to describe warnings of an “existential crisis” for journalism. In a related story, he tracks the launch of Google’s “AI Mode”, describing how an “answer engine” trained on news content can respond directly to user questions while further reducing clicks to original articles and accelerating drops in search-derived readership.

Purtill’s AI work is not limited to platform economics. His long-read on “AI psychosis” follows research into how extended chatbot conversations can trigger or exacerbate mental health crises, combining clinical perspectives with detailed descriptions of user experiences. Across these pieces he treats AI as infrastructure that rewires information markets and human behaviour, rather than as standalone gadgets.

Electric vehicles and the clean energy transition

Another core strand of his reporting looks at electric vehicles and the systems that support their adoption. He has analysed new datasets on the public charger network, showing where charging infrastructure is concentrated and where gaps remain, and linking these patterns to policy settings and investment decisions. In his comparative work on how Australia’s EV uptake compares with the rest of the world, he sets domestic sales and fleet numbers against international benchmarks to reveal lagging adoption and the structural reasons behind it.

Purtill also covers emerging technologies that change how EVs interact with the grid. In a feature on vehicle-to-grid charging, he explains how bidirectional chargers could help households save on power bills and get more value from EV batteries, while clearly outlining the technical requirements and financial constraints that mean the benefits are unevenly distributed. His reporting on clean energy extends beyond vehicles, including profiles of solar industry figures who built large-scale manufacturing operations using technology developed in Australian universities, connecting research, entrepreneurship and global supply chains.

Across his energy coverage he consistently ties technology choices to business incentives and long-term infrastructure planning, treating EVs and renewables as part of a broader economic transition rather than isolated consumer products.

Platforms, attention and changing media habits

Purtill frequently reports on social platforms and how they shape politics, attention and culture. He has covered the surge in downloads of Parler, a self-described “free speech” alternative to Twitter, in the wake of a US election, using download data and expert commentary to explore who joined the platform and what its growth meant for online speech and moderation debates. In another piece he analyses how Australians are spending less time on Facebook and much more on TikTok, drawing on usage statistics to show declines in time spent on older platforms and sharp growth on newer ones.

His interest in attention extends into reading habits and the broader cultural impact of screens. In a long feature on why people keep giving books at Christmas that are never read, he documents falling reading rates across age groups, outlines survey data on how often people finish books, and explores arguments that we are entering a “post-literate” age as scrolling and short-form video crowd out sustained reading. He uses interviews with publishers and reading advocates to explain how technology has absorbed leisure time and changed expectations about narrative length and payoff.

Purtill has also questioned the obligations of large platforms toward the news sector, asking why general-purpose communications services like Facebook should be required to support journalism and examining the consequences when those arrangements shift. This thread connects back to his AI and search coverage, building a coherent picture of how platforms, algorithms and attention together reshape the business environment for news and other media.

Science and emerging technology explainers

Alongside AI and platforms, Purtill produces science and technology explainers that break down complex concepts for a general audience. In a story on nanoparticles that control the flow of light, he describes how tiny glass slides covered in cylinder-shaped nanoparticles can show different images when viewed from opposite sides, and explains the underlying field of nonlinear optics and its potential applications in photonic computing and faster, cheaper internet. He translates technical terms such as “nonlinear dielectric resonators” into plain language metaphors, like road signs directing traffic, to make the physics comprehensible without losing precision.

This explanatory approach carries through his broader technology reporting, whether he is unpacking the architecture of AI systems used in publishing experiments, the mechanics of vehicle-to-grid charging, or the details of data that reveal shifts in social media use. His experience across broadcast and digital formats allows him to structure stories that move from clear key points into deeper technical detail, supporting communications professionals and subject-matter experts who need coverage that is both accurate and readable.