Overview of this campaign
When ChatGPT burst onto the scene, many newsrooms rushed to showcase flashy AI experiments. Norway's largest local news publisher Amedia took a different approach: instead of chasing the next big thing, we focused on making AI accessible and useful in journalists' everyday work.
Our objectives were:
- Create a secure environment for AI experimentation that prioritized practical utility over technological sophistication
- Drive adoption through demonstrating concrete, everyday benefits rather than mandates
- Build internal competence through peer-to-peer learning and hands-on workshops
- Maintain high ethical standards while encouraging innovation
- Develop tools that solve real newsroom problems
We established an "AI Hub" with representatives from eight newsrooms across Norway. These journalists weren't chosen for their technical expertise, but for their ability to spot opportunities where AI could solve actual problems. Rather than promising a revolution in journalism, we demonstrated simple, practical uses: helping a veteran journalist quickly digitize local parade schedules, enabling a reporter in language training to focus on storytelling rather than grammar, and developing tools for analyzing complex municipal budgets.
We built safety and ethics into the foundation, but more importantly, we built trust through transparency and continuous dialogue with our newsrooms. This distinctly Norwegian approach - collaborative, practical, and focused on the community - has proven remarkably effective.
Results for this campaign
The impact has been transformative across our 100+ local newsrooms:
Quantitative Achievement:
- Growth from 150 to 600 weekly active users in 10 months
- 25+ hands-on workshops conducted
- Over 50% of journalists now regularly using AI tools
More importantly, we've changed the newsroom culture, as evidenced by our editors:
"We use the sandbox for everything from proofreading to Google titles to research assistance. As a journalistic tool, it's like having a team of editorial assistants on standby at all times. Simply revolutionary."
- Pål-Nisja Wilhelmsen, Development Editor, Nettavisen
"The sandbox has removed fear and increased understanding of AI in the newsroom. We use it to improve language, sort and interpret large datasets, plan interviews, transcribe recordings, and extract text from PDFs. When we used it to analyze tax records by postal code, we discovered numerous new sources in our coverage area that we didn't know about - stories we'll be telling for the rest of the year! We love the sandbox and use it every day."
- Marie Olaussen, Development Editor, Tønsbergs Blad
The key to success wasn't sophisticated technology - it was understanding how journalists work and meeting them where they are. By focusing on practical utility over technological wizardry, we've achieved what many larger organizations haven't: widespread, voluntary adoption of AI tools in daily newsroom operations.
