Running the AI race is difficult, especially for media companies trying to stay competitive. While internal use of AI is common, providing a product to users that offers real value can be challenging.

One of our first AI products at Ringier Serbia was Virtual Chef, inspired by our readers and one of our main categories on the Blic Woman Web site: food and recipes.

Recipes are quite simple yet universal. They’re a topic that generates traffic every day. You could find a recipe, but what if you wanted to swap an ingredient, adjust portions, or check calories? We wanted to create the first-of-its-kind AI-driven cooking assistant in the Serbian media landscape.

That led to the creation of Virtual Chef: an AI-powered assistant that lets readers ask for recipes in plain language, modify them to their needs, and even get step-by-step cooking guidance.

The experience was designed to feel more like chatting rather than browsing a database on regular Web sites and endlessly searching for recipes. It provides value for users, but for us as a publisher, it is even more powerful. It’s a new way to engage users and, of course, grow our traffic and audience while scaling the content.

When readers speak, we listen

One of the most valuable outcomes of Virtual Chef wasn’t just what it gave readers, but the insights it provided us about them. So, instead of relying on traditional analytics, we listened to our users’ intentions and needs.

The patterns were obvious, as were the user segments: health-conscious cooks who looked for nutritional values; readers in the summer looking for a quick salad recipe; or readers who maybe watched a viral TikTok video recipe and tried to recreate it.

Our editorial team took these insights into account and turned them into highly relevant content. If AI could not provide a traditional Serbian recipe, we did. Therefore, our database became bigger, and Virtual Chef could use it to provide a better experience to our users.

So, if you see some unusual recipe, it was not just brainstormed in the newsroom; it was a direct answer to what our audience asked for. The result was amazing: fresh content that instantly resonates with user needs and strengthens relationships with readers.

Turning engagement into growth

For a media company like Ringier Serbia, which has long relied on traditional media, innovation is key to transformation. Naturally, we had transformative goals in mind: to increase user engagement, optimise editorial content with AI insights, and grow traffic.

Transformation is only meaningful if it drives results. Virtual Chef obviously did.

Readers who engaged with Virtual Chef spent more time on the site — more than double the average session length, and, of course, it resulted in a slight increase in traffic.

In December, during the holiday season, we saw a 63% increase in sessions for recipe content compared to the same time last year. So, basically, the same amount of produced content led to an additional 63% in sessions and double the time spent, followed by new functionality for our users.

In the end, Virtual Chef is more than just a cooking assistant. It’s a case study in how AI can help media brands connect more meaningfully with their audiences by blending smart technology with everyday needs.

For Ringier Serbia and Blic Woman, it has become a proof point of how innovation, when done with the audience in mind, can deliver value on every front — for readers, for the editorial team, and for the business.

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