Behind Every Public Notice Is a Person: Column CEO Megan Villanueva on ASBN's Business Trends Today

Public notices often accompany significant moments in people's lives: starting a business, settling an estate, or navigating a legal process. For the individuals and organizations placing them, accuracy and trust are essential, and so is access to knowledgeable support when questions arise.

On ASBN's Business Trends Today, Column CEO Megan Villanueva discussed with Jim Fitzpatrick why public notice matters, the central role newspapers continue to play, and how leaders can modernize a traditional industry without losing sight of the customers and communities it serves.

Public notice keeps communities informed

Public notices are, as Megan explained, legally required information that "needs to be published so communities can stay informed about important government, legal or civic actions," from school board meetings to new business filings.

Megan believes that role will only grow in importance. As AI contributes to more misinformation online, "verifiable, factual information becomes harder to actually find." Public notice provides an official, reliable record, and Column's mission is to make that record more accessible to everyone who depends on it.

Newspapers remain central to public notice

Across the country, local newspapers are where communities can turn for official notice of the decisions and actions that affect them.

"These notices still publish in newspapers all around the country. Newspapers are the primary disseminators of this information."

Megan also acknowledged why the industry approaches new technology carefully:

"Industries are not resistant to change for no reason. Newspapers in particular have been disrupted by technology in the past."

For that reason, Column builds alongside its newspaper partners, learning their workflows and improving the process together over time. "If we did not do that over the last six, seven years," Megan noted, "we really wouldn't be where we are today."

A people-first approach to AI

Megan evaluates new technology by a simple standard: does it serve Column's mission and strengthen the customer experience? With AI, that means asking where it can act as "a force multiplier" for the team, and where it could "damage the customer experience."

"We're really thinking about how to use AI to augment our existing team, and not how to use AI to reduce headcount to improve margins."

That distinction matters in public notice, where customers are often managing important personal and legal matters.

"These involve big life events in people's lives, and they want to engage with a human."

Column's support team holds a 95% customer satisfaction score, which Megan attributes to the team's commitment to "really supporting people who are going through these legal processes."

Our perspective

At Column, we view technology as a way to serve people more effectively, not as a substitute for them. Automation and AI help us remove friction from the process so our team can focus on the work that requires judgment, expertise and care.

As AI changes how people find and evaluate information, the right question isn't only how much can we automate? It's who are we serving, and can they trust what they find?

For Column, that answer always starts with the people behind each notice.

Watch Megan's full conversation on ASBN's Business Trends Today.