A WIRED report published October 28, 2026, says Macmillan introduced Chaptr’s NOA chatbot to employees in January 2024. In October 2025, a company-wide email told staff Chaptr would sunset it. Employees described what NOA was meant to do and said they found it unreliable and little used.
What NOA was meant to do
NOA, short for “No Ordinary Assistant,” was an AI chatbot developed by Chaptr, according to WIRED. Employees said Macmillan encouraged them to use it to write emails and copy, research marketing, generate ideas, and draft performance-review goals.
Employees also said training warned that NOA could hallucinate, or produce false information, and that people needed to fact-check its output. Their accounts describe the intended uses and workplace experience, not measured performance or adoption. Some employees characterized the chatbot as unreliable and said it saw little use.
From introduction to sunset notice
Macmillan introduced NOA to staff in January 2024, according to employee accounts reported by WIRED. Later that year, employees were encouraged to try a specialized NOA prompt for drafting performance-review goals. In October 2025, a company-wide email told staff that Chaptr would sunset the chatbot.
Macmillan’s response on Gemini
WIRED also reported that some Macmillan employees experimented with Google Gemini to assess literary-agent submissions. Kelly Collins, Macmillan’s vice president of communications and community, said the company uses Gemini for business and denied that its leadership directed staff to use it for any part of the publishing process, including assessing those submissions.
Collins also disputed WIRED’s account of how NOA was rolled out, saying the points described did not accurately reflect its rollout and communication. She did not specify which details she disputed.
Broader workplace findings on AI
A CNBC Make It segment published April 7, 2026, reported results from a Workday survey: employees using AI saved between one and seven hours a week, while correction, rewriting, editing, and fact-checking consumed 40% of those efficiency gains. The segment also reported that 27% of individual contributors said they received company AI training, and 32% said they had clear access to AI tools. These are broad workplace findings, not measurements of Macmillan employees or NOA.
The same segment reported that 74% of C-suite respondents felt excited about AI, while 68% of individual contributors felt anxious or overwhelmed.
