I’m not going to declare that we are post peak AI, but we are definitely post peak AI excitement in the news industry.
I spent an intensive week meeting top news industry leaders last week at various Press Gazette events and, with one or two exceptions, the current response to AI in the newsroom is “meh”.
Yes, automation has delivered some incremental improvements. But the technology does not appear to have transformed journalism, yet.
Hallucinations remain a fundamental blocker preventing widespread use of generative AI in the world of facts.
Google AI overviews are back, but they are shonky as hell.
And AI-generated images and illustrations just look creepy.
But lest we get complacent, media consultant Matthew Scott Goldstein has issued a wake-up call to publishers about how AI will yet transform news media. Take a closer look at platforms like Perplexity, he says, which already reads the news and delivers a tailored summary for those who don’t have time to visit publishers directly.
The whole universe of search-based content discovery is about to be turned on its head, he argues.
Speaking at Press Gazette’s Future of Media Technology Conference Mail head of SEO Carly Steven explained how the world of search has become more volatile and harder to predict than ever. Along with three other experts, she shared her insights into how publishers can work more productively with the tech giants. More reports from that conference to come over the next week.
And, still on AI, The Economist has revealed how it is using the technology to provide auto-translated articles at scale without need for human intervention – which is far from an easy thing to do. Read our interview with Economist senior editor for AI initiatives Ludwig Siegele.
Dominic Ponsford
