AI has emerged as the defining issue for news publishers, overshadowing all other debates as Europe’s leading media executives warn of both existential threats and once-in-a-generation opportunities. From agentic AI assistants to newsroom automation, the technology is reshaping strategies for trust, subscriptions, and survival. 

Cutting across presentations during the recent INMA Media Innovation Week in Dublin — a conference, study tour, and newsroom hub — AI emerged as the central force reshaping the European news industry.

Trust and transparency, the ethical foundation of AI

The most important issue raised across Media Innovation Week sessions was trust. 

AI has the potential to turbocharge newsroom productivity and audience engagement, but without clear transparency it risks eroding journalism’s greatest asset. 

From Svenska Dagbladet to Politiken to Euractiv, publishers argued for clear labelling of AI-generated content, transparency around data usage, and shared industry standards. 

Without this, audiences may distrust both the technology and the publishers who use it. 

Ethical frameworks are no longer optional — they are a prerequisite for deploying AI responsibly.

This goes beyond labelling to include auditing algorithms, safeguarding against bias, and ensuring editorial oversight.

Lena K. Samuelsson, a senior advisor at Schibsted, stressed that editorial independence must not be compromised by machine-generated content. Amalie Nash, Newsroom Transformation Initiative lead at INMA, warned that without strong safeguards, hallucinations and bias could undermine credibility. 

Case studies on AI ethical foundations included Politiken's adoption of a cautious approach, requiring human review of all AI-generated outputs before publication. 

The shared conclusion: AI cannot compromise truthfulness. Trust is journalism’s irreplaceable currency, and it must be defended even in a hyper-automated era.

The subscription imperative: AI must reinforce value

Greg Piechota, researcher-in-residence at INMA, highlighted a consistent theme: Subscriptions remain the north star. 

AI must reinforce willingness to pay by enhancing user experience — through habit-building nudges, personalised digests, and dynamic paywalls. 

Schibsted has leveraged AI-driven personalisation to deepen loyalty, while The Irish Times is experimenting with automated tagging and personalised catch-ups designed to strengthen subscription value. 

AI offers two distinct opportunities here: 

• Habit-building tools: Machine learning can identify reading patterns and nudge users to form daily routines. Jagran Prakashan in India is already doing this with habit modules — an approach European publishers are monitoring closely.

• Dynamic paywalls: AI-driven models test which content drives conversion for which audiences. Axel Springer has been investing heavily in this, adjusting its subscription funnel in real time.

Case studies include:

• Schibsted: Personalised feeds based on user data improved retention among younger cohorts, while maintaining an editorial “editor’s pick” layer to ensure serendipity and public-interest journalism. 

• The Irish Times: Piloted AI-driven personalised digests for registered users, designed to provide quick morning or evening updates, boosting engagement without overwhelming readers. 

• Mediahuis Belgium: Leveraging AI to recommend subscription bundles across multiple titles, encouraging cross-brand loyalty.

Subscriptions are not just a business model; they are a vote of confidence in journalism’s value. AI, done right, strengthens that relationship.

The platform challenge: Google Zero and disintermediation

Robert Whitehead, lead of INMA’s Digital Platform Initiative, described Google’s AI-driven search overviews as a “watershed moment.” In this Google Zero world, users get answers without clicking through to publishers. This threatens advertising, subscriptions, and brand attribution alike. 

As AI-native platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Anthropic’s Claude build their own news layers, the risk of disintermediation grows. 

Publishers are responding in three ways: 

• Licensing deals: Daily Mail and Axel Springer have both struck content agreements with AI companies, though leaders dismiss them as “short-term don’t-sue-me deals.” 

• Proprietary AI tools: Ringier has built an internal MediaTech hub, and INMA has launched Ask INMA to harness its own data. 

• Direct relationships: Loyalty programmes, micro-rewards, and events are increasingly crucial as publishers seek to bring readers into owned environments. 

Case studies include:

• Russmedia (Austria): Built its own regional AI assistant to provide direct answers to readers, ensuring attribution and brand reinforcement. 

• Ringier MediaTech (Switzerland): Developing proprietary AI recommendation systems that keep audiences inside Ringier platforms rather than ceding control to Big Tech.

• Daily Mail (UK): Testing resilience strategies as its vast search-driven traffic base faces disruption from AI overviews.

The stakes could not be higher. Whoever owns the AI interface owns the audience — and possibly the revenue.

Culture and literacy: AI is a people issue

Aisling McCabe, group strategy and business development director at The Irish Times, emphasised that AI adoption is not just a technical problem but a people problem.

Surveys showed most staff had only basic knowledge of AI but were eager to experiment. 

By rolling out hackathons, AI hubs, and training, McCabe’s team is building internal literacy. Funke Media, NWZ Mediengruppe, and Mediafin shared similar initiatives. 

The lesson: Organisational culture, not algorithms, determines whether AI succeeds. 

Cultural tactics include: 

• Hackathons: Funke and Schibsted have used them to encourage experimentation. 

• AI hubs: The Irish Times and Aller Media have created cross-functional task forces to test and share AI use cases. 

• Governance frameworks: Ringier and Axel Springer are developing compliance standards to ensure AI is used ethically across departments. 

Journalist and author Sophia Smith Galer highlighted that AI literacy must extend beyond editorial: advertising teams, product managers, and executives need fluency to anticipate disruption across the value chain.

Human-centred reinvention: leadership and courage in the AI era

Peter Vandermeersch, CEO of Mediahuis Ireland, offered a provocative reminder: “The future of journalism will not be won by the strongest brands or even the most technologically advanced ones. It will be won by those willing to reinvent boldly — without losing sight of who they are.” 

Applied to AI, his message is clear: Technology alone will not save journalism. Leaders must show courage to experiment with AI, humility to learn from mistakes, and determination to align innovation with core values. AI amplifies both strengths and weaknesses. If newsrooms adopt it timidly or recklessly, the technology could accelerate decline. If they embrace it strategically, AI becomes a catalyst for reinvention.

Vandermeersch reframed AI not as an IT project but as a leadership challenge. Success requires reinvention at every level — mindset, culture, and mission — not just the adoption of new tools.

Practical newsroom applications: assistants, not replacements 

AI is already at work in European newsrooms: 

• Automation of repetitive tasks: Badischer Verlag has deployed AI to generate sports reports and weather summaries, freeing journalists for deeper work. 

• AI tagging and transcription: The Irish Times and Funke use AI for tagging and transcription, cutting production time.

• AI summaries and digests: The Daily Mail and BreakingNews.ie are experimenting with personalised summaries and catch-ups. 

• RTÉ (Ireland): Exploring AI to create automated subtitles and live translations, widening accessibility.

• The Journal.ie (Ireland): Using AI-driven alerts and recommendation engines to better target breaking news readers. 

• Mediafin (Belgium): Testing AI-driven financial market monitoring tools to augment journalists covering fast-moving economies.

Across the board, editors stressed that AI is an assistant, not a replacement. Human judgement and ethics remain indispensable.

Personalisation and agentic AI

The next frontier is agentic AI, highlighted in a keynote by Robert Whitehead.

Unlike today’s reactive chatbots, agentic systems anticipate needs — offering proactive news digests, contextual briefings before meetings, and seamless transitions between text, audio, and video. 

Whitehead described this shift as the “biggest leap yet” in AI, with profound implications: If platforms control the agent, they control the audience relationship. For publishers, the challenge is to develop their own agentic systems or risk irrelevance. 

Case studies of experimentation include: 

• Schibsted (Norway/Sweden): trialling AI concierges that learn from user habits to deliver personalised morning briefings. 

• Sanoma Media (Finland): Prototyping agentic AI tools that combine calendar integration with news digests for professionals. 

• Ringier MediaTech (Switzerland): building proprietary assistants that proactively suggest content, blending journalism with lifestyle recommendations. 

• Russmedia (Austria): testing regional AI guides that anticipate local information needs, from weather to events.

• NTM (Sweden): experimenting with agentic systems that can proactively deliver local sports and school news to parents.

• Bonnier News (Sweden): investigating whether agentic AI can help integrate audio, text, and video seamlessly across its platforms.

Gabriel Dorosz, Advertising Initiative lead at INMA (formerly led strategy and insights for advertising at The New York Times), and Tom McCave, former vice president of performance marketing at The Economist, further envisioned agentic AI as a personal news concierge, deeply integrated into daily routines. 

The question is not whether users will adopt agentic systems, but whether publishers will own them — or cede control to Big Tech.

Case studies in AI innovation 

INMA’s Media Innovation Week in Dublin spotlighted many case studies in AI innovation. Among them: 

• Ringier MediaTech (Switzerland): built an internal AI hub to reduce reliance on third-party solutions. 

• Schibsted (Norway/Sweden): deployed AI personalisation for retention, while keeping editorial oversight strong.

• Daily Mail (UK): using AI to optimise content distribution, facing challenges around attribution in AI search. 

• Russmedia (Austria): advocating for platform regulation while trialling AI newsroom assistants. 

• Badischer Verlag (Germany): automating repetitive reporting tasks. 

• Aller Media (Denmark/Norway): testing AI to power personalised magazine experiences across digital editions. 

• Mediafin (Belgium): experimenting with AI-assisted financial data analysis to strengthen B2B journalism. 

• Ouest France (France): deploying AI-driven recommendation engines to sustain engagement among younger readers. 

• NZZ (Switzerland): investigating AI for multilingual output to expand reach across European markets. 

• Medienhaus Süd (Germany): developing semi-automated local coverage for small communities where resources are scarce.

The business model shift 

AI is also reshaping advertising and commerce. 

Kerstin Hasse creator of Hasse mit Liebe, Janis Kitzhofer senior manager/editorial insights and development at Axel Springer, and Neelkamal Biswas, co-founder of circlestack, argued AI-driven targeting will challenge traditional models. 

First-party data, affiliate commerce, branded content, and bundled subscriptions are rising in importance. 

Publishers must ask: Who owns the customer relationship in an AI-driven environment? The answer may determine their survival. 

Case studies include: 

• Axel Springer (Germany): pioneering AI-driven advertising models that match first-party audience data with contextual targeting. 

• Aller Media (Norway): developing AI-enhanced e-commerce recommendations tied to lifestyle journalism. 

• Mediahuis Belgium: testing AI-supported affiliate commerce to diversify beyond traditional ad sales. 

The future business model will be multi-layered: subscriptions, commerce, advertising, and events — all enhanced by AI.

Conclusion: AI as the true test of reinvention 

AI is no longer a side project or a distant concern for European publishers. It is the crossroads at which every decision about journalism’s future now sits. From Dublin to Hamburg to Oslo, the discussions at INMA’s Media Innovation Week revealed both the urgency and the possibility of this moment. 

The stakes are existential: Trust, subscriptions, and direct audience relationships must all be rebuilt in an era when platforms, algorithms, and agents risk interposing themselves between publishers and readers. 

But the opportunities are equally powerful: AI promises efficiency, deeper engagement, and new forms of personalisation that can renew the compact between news brands and their communities. 

What unites the most compelling examples from Schibsted, Mediahuis, Ringier, Funke, The Irish Times, and others is not the technology itself but the leadership, discipline, and imagination with which it is deployed. 

As Peter Vandermeersch reminded his peers, journalism’s survival will not be determined by who has the shiniest tools but by who reinvents most courageously without losing sight of their values. 

AI magnifies both strengths and weaknesses. For those that adopt it cautiously but boldly — aligning innovation with ethics, culture, and mission — it can be the catalyst for a new chapter of journalism. For those who ignore or mishandle it, the decline will only accelerate.

Europe’s publishers left Dublin not with all the answers but with a clear mandate: to lead, to experiment, and to reinvent in ways that keep trust and truth at the centre. At the crossroads of media transformation, AI is the great test — and how publishers respond will define journalism for a generation.

Editor’s note: This article summarises, with the assistance of ChatGPT, original content created by INMA. All content has been reviewed and edited by INMA editors.

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