AI Watch Dog
2025 Finalist
Overview of this campaign
The AI Watch Dog provides our journalists with real-time, highly relevant data from various online sources. By delivering instant alerts when critical information—such as rising river levels or newly published documents from political offices —is available, the project ensures that journalists are the first to report on key developments. This helps maintain the accuracy and timeliness of news coverage, making sure that the information is up-to-date and reliable.
Objective 2: Empowering Journalists with Automated Tools
The AI Watch Dog aims to reduce the manual labor involved in information gathering, allowing journalists to focus on high-level reporting and analysis. The AI-powered alerts and scrapers automatically detect and present valuable data, saving time and effort. This efficiency allows journalists to stay ahead of the competition and respond faster to emerging stories, providing them with an edge in fast-paced news environments.
Objective 3: Fostering Innovation in Newsrooms
The project also seeks to drive innovation in newsrooms by leveraging modern artificial intelligence and data scraping technologies. By integrating these tools into daily journalistic workflows, the AI Watch Dog offers new ways to discover, track, and analyze critical information. This empowers journalists to stay proactive, improving the quality of news coverage and contributing to the overall evolution of modern journalism.
Objective 4: Boosting Journalistic Responsiveness and Preparedness
By providing journalists with highly specific and targeted alerts, the AI Watch Dog enhances their ability to report quickly. Whether it's reacting to environmental changes or tracking government publications, the Watch Dog helps journalists stay well-informed and prepared to deliver comprehensive, accurate reporting in a timely manner.
Results for this campaign
We started building the AI Watch Dog in October and made it accessible to out journalists in December. Currently, the Watch Dog monitors several crucial areas, including water levels of the Rhine, disruptions in train services from ÖBB, mobile and internet service disruptions across Austria, tenders and contract awards from the state of Vorarlberg, protocols from municipal council meetings in all municipalities of Vorarlberg, and studies and reports from the state of Vorarlberg. But this is just the beginning – we are discovering new potentials for the Watch Dog every day. As the project continues to grow, its capacity to provide timely and relevant information will only expand, further enhancing journalistic workflows.
