The full penetration of artificial intelligence (AI) in newsrooms around the world has been a phenomenon in recent years, as news media struggle to gain attention and maintain public trust while cutting staff and costs. With artificial intelligence being used to access information, produce news articles and identify trends, is the incorporation of AI an opportunity or a challenge for the news media?
While human journalists are still stunned by breaking news, robot writers are already rapidly describing and analysing data, mining it for further value, and finally writing automated articles in seconds. There is no better way to increase ratings and reduce costs than to automate news production using AI. With automated journalism, broadcasters can research, write and distribute relevant content using AI.
In the publishing media industry, Reuters and Bloomberg News were the first companies to fire editors and journalists following the adoption of AI automation. AI automation accounts for a third of Bloomberg’s news releases, and through automation, Bloomberg News is able to check available financial reports and create newsworthy stories that are relevant to the financial sector. In addition, AI fact-checks this to provide top accuracy over time.
When it comes to video streaming services, Netflix is by far the biggest company to benefit from artificial intelligence, with over 130 million subscribers on different payment plans. It is using machine learning to automate algorithms to “tailor” posters and short previews of relevant original content to users based on their viewing preferences, with a view to achieving a wider reach of content. Deloitte has published a report on the state of AI for companies across the US, in which it specifically mentions the case of Netflix: Netflix found that their users like to search for movies, but if it takes more than 90 seconds to search for and find a movie, they tend to give up while optimizing in-site search with AI technology not only gives users an improved user experience It also allows users to pay faster. According to a report by Deloitte, Netflix could earn an extra $1 billion in just one year thanks to AI improvements to search.
It is estimated that $118.6 billion will be spent on AI globally by 2025, with the media and entertainment (M&E) industry set to spend a further $1,860.9 million by 2025 (up from $329 million in 2019). It is not enough to say that AI is gaining traction in the media industry, but rather that it is becoming mainstream when it comes to integrating AI into media workflows. Media companies have become more efficient in areas such as understanding their audiences and predicting their choices before making appropriate recommendations – all thanks to AI. In fact, AI is a game changer for the industry and is already disrupting existing marketing strategies, streamlining media processes through automation and ultimately driving revenue growth.
For all the great benefits that news automation brings to the economic sustainability of the industry, the result is that AI-driven journalism will require new levels of editorial and institutional oversight.
Francesco Marconi, who was co-head of AI at the Associated Press and was the first head of R&D at the Wall Street Journal, has been working to implement new processes in the editorial department. In his book Newsmakers: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism, he analyses the challenges and opportunities facing AI through case studies, from financial publications using algorithms to write profitability reports to investigative journalists analyzing large data sets to media outlets determining the distribution of news on social media.
“AI is just another tool in the journalism toolbox, like the internet, the telephone and the typewriter; it can enhance rather than automate journalism, enabling journalists to publish more news faster while freeing up time for more in-depth analysis and creation.”
I met a Phoenix Europe correspondent, Xu Liang, not long ago and we talked about whether the profession of journalism would be replaced by AI in the future. She said, “With the continuous mature development of artificial intelligence, AI will become an integral part of journalists’ daily work in China, such as interview collation, foreign language translation, script entry, or virtual anchoring, which are all important aspects that facilitate journalists to work quickly and efficiently.” She added: “But the biggest barrier, human and machine, is emotion. When we do outbound reporting, it’s especially important to be unprepared, to empathize with the interviewees, and to find out the wording and accuracy. We need to not only gather interview material but also do an interview that ‘has warmth’. This is something that AI cannot replace, or at least AI technology at this stage still cannot replace the role of a human being.”
“Any medium has its birth, growth, maturity and demise, and the integration of a new technology does not mean the imminent demise of an old one. The ideal media environment of the future must be one in which artificial intelligence and humans live in harmony.”
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool for journalism, but it is vital that all journalists are made aware of these technologies. JournalismAI, a project by POLIS, a journalism think tank at the London School of Economics and Political Science, in collaboration with the Google News Initiative, aims to educate and inform newsrooms about the potential of AI technology through research and training while fostering an international network of journalism innovators The project aims to educate and inform newsrooms about the potential of AI technology while fostering an international network of news innovators.
Artificial intelligence could have a broad and far-reaching impact on the way news is produced and consumed in the future, with journalists rethinking the way they access news and deliver it to their audiences. At a time when news media are fighting for economic sustainability as well as public trust and relevance, AI could free up journalists to create better news. It can also help the public cope with a world of flooded news and misinformation, and connect them to credible content that is relevant, useful and stimulating to their lives in a convenient way.