GenAI will shape newsrooms in 2025

By Paula Felps

INMA

Nashville, Tennessee, United States

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As they enter 2025, newspaper leaders have a lot on their minds. From the impact of generative AI to the implications of a second Trump presidency, the landscape of journalism is poised for significant transformation. 

During this week’s Webinar, 2025 trends and predictions for GenAI in news media, presented by INMA’s Generative AI and Newsroom Transformation initiatives, members heard an overview of what other executives are thinking of — and planning for. Amalie Nash and Sonali Verma, leads of the Newsroom Transformation Initiative and Generative AI Initiative respectively, led the conversation. 

Nash dug into some of the predictions made by executives and released by Nieman Lab. While the predictions leaned heavily into the impact of AI, Nash said they were “all over the map” in terms of what news media companies think is on tap in the coming months. 

One of the biggest topics that is top of mind, Nash said, is how the media will react to a second Trump presidency: “There are a lot of predictions around: Do we see a Trump bump? And how do we follow that?”

This week, INMA Initiative Leads Sonali Verma and Amalie Nash were joined by David Cohn (Advance Local) and Chase Davis (Star Tribune) to delve into what newsrooms can expect from generative AI in 2025.
This week, INMA Initiative Leads Sonali Verma and Amalie Nash were joined by David Cohn (Advance Local) and Chase Davis (Star Tribune) to delve into what newsrooms can expect from generative AI in 2025.

AI in the driver’s seat of change

Aside from Trump, AI continues to be a dominant theme in the predictions for 2025.

Industry leaders are keenly aware of both its potential and pitfalls, and Nash shared some of their comments and insights. For example, Artem Fishman, chief technology officer at Dow Jones, emphasised the need to evaluate the return on investment (ROI) of AI initiatives. While the experimental phase has been crucial, 2025 is seen as the year to prove the financial viability of AI investments.

In 2025, news media companies will start looking for an ROI in AI.
In 2025, news media companies will start looking for an ROI in AI.

“This was a big topic of conversation at the INMA CEO Roundtable in Vail last year,” Nash said, adding that looking for the ROI too quickly can stifle creativity, “but obviously at some point you have to prove that the amount of resources you’ve dedicated to this is going to pay off in the end.”

Verma echoed this sentiment, noting many people below the CEO level are being asked to make business cases for AI projects. The luxury of unlimited funds is not a reality for most news organisations, making it imperative to demonstrate the effectiveness of AI initiatives.

Many newsrooms expect to use AI for translating content into multiple languages. Benjamin Morales-Melendez, managing editor of Dario Libra in the Dominican Republic, told Neiman’s Lab that AI is on the cusp of reaching its potential in this area. However, the challenge remains in ensuring translations capture cultural nuances and read as if written by native speakers.

Embracing the disruption

Chase Davis, head of the AI lab at The Minnesota Star Tribune, joined in the conversation to discuss his predictions for the new year and look at how newsrooms can break new ground in AI.

Like many companies, The Star Tribune is trying to strike the balance between using it to find efficiencies and to create new products that add value, he said. Many of the projects now are not the kinds of things that gained attention in the past two years – like chatbots and story generation – but are things “the average person would find kind of boring.” 

They fall into the categories of such things as structuring data, annotating stories with new types of metadata, and evaluating how effective AI systems are for journalistic work. And while they sound boring on the surface, they’re important because they allow companies “to do things that historically we haven’t been able to do very well.” 

Chase Davis, head of the AI lab at the Minnesota Star Tribune, predicts newsrooms will explore new ways to use generative AI in the coming year.
Chase Davis, head of the AI lab at the Minnesota Star Tribune, predicts newsrooms will explore new ways to use generative AI in the coming year.

As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, the distinctiveness and human touch of journalism will become even more critical, Davis said.

He highlighted the importance of empowering reporters to do more distinctive work rather than just working more quickly. The ability to draw value from archives and create new products that leverage historical data is seen as a significant opportunity. He pointed to The New York Times’ Cooking section as an example. 

“It used to be a really hard thing to go back through your archives to extract all of your recipes and then turn that into a freestanding product, but generative AI tools … can do those tasks relatively trivially.”  

He suggested news companies should look at the “low-hanging fruit” and see how to apply GenAI to solve specific problems or fill needs within their organsiations: “Get a little bit more familiar with the technologies, and then try to figure out, are there certain ways that we may be able to apply that that are unique and distinctive to us? Because distinctiveness is important,” Davis said. 

Revisiting familiar territory 

While many publishers are thinking globally and looking at how GenAI can help expand their reach, David Cohn, senior director of research and development for content at Advance Local, said AI can help return journalism to some of its roots, allowing companies to conduct what he called “niche search” features.

“The idea is that you can take unique data sets and bundle them” and make them available through the publication’s search engine, he explained. For example, the San Francisco Chronicle had three decades of reporting on Kamala Harris because she began her career as a district attorney in San Francisco.

The Chronicle bundled that information into a chatbot that allowed users to ask questions. This approach could be particularly effective for local news companies, which could bundle data sets unique to their community, Cohn said. 

David Cohn of Advance Local expect AI to help revive some journalistic practices that have faded in recent years.
David Cohn of Advance Local expect AI to help revive some journalistic practices that have faded in recent years.

Other trends Cohn expects to see in 2025 include the return of the reporter. As tools have made writing easier, the skill of reporting – of ferreting out unique information and finding hidden stories – will become more valued:

“The emphasis on your writing may drop, but that means the emphasis on your reporting should increase,” he said. “Journalists will need to intensely refocus on their ability to discover the news. And that includes building relationships, understanding community trends, and more.”  

In a related prediction, he anticipates a resurgence of hyperlocal journalism as AI makes it economically feasible for small teams to cover local areas. Cohn also sees potential in revisiting the concept of citizen journalism, leveraging AI to manage and structure the influx of user-generated content.

“I think with generative AI, we can enter into a new relationship with the audience,” Cohn observed. “If our emphasis is getting new information, one of the greatest sources of the news will be from our community.”

In a world flooded with cheap digital content, print may see a resurgence in value. The tangible nature of print and the filtering it automatically provides could make it a premium product in a AI-dominated landscape. 

“I think print … has an opportunity to sort of reestablish the value of [news], not just as a product that has a reading experience, but also as a product that has a certain amount of value that is naturally embedded into it.”

About Paula Felps

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