The role of AI in news media companies took centre stage during much of the recent INMA South Asia News Media Festival as speakers and panelists shared what they’ve learned about it so far, how they’re using it, and what to expect in the future.

Generative AI is playing a significant role in transforming the industry, said Earl Wilkinson, INMA CEO, and for leaders, its use is all about effectiveness, productivity, and efficiency — in that order. The concerns that initially surrounded it, such as the belief that it threatened the industry, have dissipated, and today organisations are in various stages of shifting from the unknown to the known and learning how to embrace it.

But even as the mindset shifts, the question of ROI is beginning to be raised, Wilkinson said: “We’re beginning to hear on our board not about the new ideas that are happening, but now we’ve done 18 months of experimentation, and here are the things that aren’t working.”  

Wilkinson predicted a shift in resources to “things that will matter.” Some of the most valuable uses for GenAI among news companies are things like translation tools and audio capabilities including synthetic voice and text-to-speech. Amongst INMA members, Wilkinson said, the main priorities are workflow optimisation, summarisation, chat, and audio.

Applications and strategies

Sonali Verma, lead of INMA’s Generative AI Initiative, took a deeper dive into how GenAI is changing the news media, sharing use cases from around the world. She noted that internal workflow use cases are more common than audience-facing ones; they are lower risk and can help improve efficiencies in areas like gathering data or creating different versions of content.

“As far as audience facing products go, audio is really interesting,” she said. “There’s a lot of investment and a lot of thought into how it can help reach new audiences, and chat products as well.”

Chat could be useful in improving users’ search experience, which could pay off for companies: “If you can help the user come to your site and give them exactly what they’re looking for, something that’s relevant and valuable, there’s a good chance they’ll come back again.”

The important thing for news companies to remember as they embrace GenAI is the 80/20 rule: allow GenAI to complete 80% of a task but ensure that a human does 20% of it: “You want a human in the loop and the beginning of the task and at the end of it,” Verma said. This ensures the task begins with the correct prompts and direction and also checks for accuracy when it is completed.

Safeguarding content

As news media companies look at how to harness the power of GenAI, they also must protect the content they produce, said Prashant Verma, director of partnerships at Dow Jones/India.

The company has long used AI technology to fulfill its primary mission: to serve the information needs of consumers. Its global brands, which include The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, and Investor’s Business Daily, serve both individuals and businesses. And as a trusted partner to news and information providers, Dow Jones has a responsibility to implement new technologies in a trustworthy manner. 

Dow Jones has been working with GenAI for about two years, leaning into tools for things like writing summarisations or working with data.

“It helps journalists free up their time to focus on more important things,” he said, also noting the content is checked for accuracy: “Accuracy is not something we will compromise on. Ever.”

The company also must be mindful of things like copyright issues when using GenAI, so Dow Jones has created guiding principles:

1. Transparency. “This is so important,” he said. “Not just for the user, but for publishing partners.” It includes knowing where the content originates and where it is being used.
2. Compensation. All content that is used is paid for. “None of us are in a no-profit business,” Verma said. “Where there is content, there is revenue.”
3. Segmentation. Each industry has its own problems to solve and has different use cases. GenAI will look at how to create solutions for each industry in a way that is the most appropriate and in line with the guiding principles.
4. Compliance. Dow Jones ensures it complies with all rules, laws, and regulations surrounding GenAI.

Verma envisions a future where AI technology has a symbiotic relationship with journalism, but said it is important to remain cautious and make sure the technology serves the industry.

“Together we can really harness the power of AI, enhance journalism using these technologies, promote transparency, and we can uphold the standards of ethical and responsible use,” she said.

AI for revenue

“When people start to talk about AI, the first thing they usually talk about is loss of jobs,” said Puneet Gupt, COO of Times Internet. “But there is no loss of jobs if we use AI to create revenue.”

Some of the biggest challenges facing the news media industry can be overcome using AI, Gupt said, sharing how Times Internet is leveraging it.

From building a chatbot that improves results for advertisers to using AI-generated creative ads that showed a 4x increase in click-through rates to providing accurate gender prediction, Times Internet has seen dramatic results and economic returns by implementing it.  

The company has seen a 95% lift in CTR on personalised push notifications and also has seen the recirculation of older stories increase. In the newsroom, GenAI has increased productivity and cost efficiency, completing tasks such as generating first drafts for editors to review and converting articles to video.

“We also created our own ad campaign with AI,” Gupt said. “We wrote on the creative [that it was] created with AI. And this was not digital, it ran on billboards.”

Gupt emphasised how far the technology has come and how good its results are. The capabilities of AI have even changed the way the company defines itself, he said: “We used to say we needed to be a technology first company; today we say we must be an AI-first company.”

Optimising for search in the AI era

Another challenge for news media companies as AI gains footing is they’re seeing less SEO traffic. Rudra Prasad Kasturi, chief strategy officer/digital business for TV Today Network, shared insights on how search is changing and offered strategies to move into the future.

He offered a thorough explanation of how Google AI Overview (AIO) works and explained it issourced from various Web sites, with links to the sources, and includes the option of asking a follow-up question to improve the search. The search goes beyond text to include images and video.

While news publishers are worried about it taking away traffic, Kasturi explained the methodology AIO uses to surface information and delivered good news to media companies: Google A overview is completely trained data. That means it is not real-time data for you in overview. Most of the SEO people in the publishing industry should be happy because your career is still important.”

In considering sources to use, Google considers relevance over ranking.

“What it means is because you rank No. 1 in SEO doesn’t mean that you have an option to go to a AIO,” Kasturi said. “You should be relevant in terms of the explanation for the query that you have searched.” 

The algorithm also looks at content diversity, user interaction information, and the trustworthiness and authority of the sources. Knowing that, news media companies should not be concerned about Google AIO taking away traffic.

“Good content always gets value. Never worry about will it take away traffic as long as you do the right content,” Kasturi said, noting Google understands only useful, trustworthy content and expert advice — such as found through news media companies — will give users the value they are looking for.

“That actually is going to pay a lot of value for us,” he said. “It’ll not take away any of your traffic; don’t worry about that.”

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