Hi there. I recently spent a couple of days in London, which was more energising than I could have imagined (just look at the photo at the end of this newsletter). The next couple of newsletters will focus around some of the things I picked up meeting with CEOs, heads of digital and product folk, and some of the things I found myself talking about. 

So today we look at practical uses of AI we can use today and asking of some of us: Are we too old (!)?

I hope you enjoy it. And it if sparks a reaction, I’d love to hear about it: jodie.hopperton@INMA.org.

Thanks, Jodie

5 practical examples of ways AI can be used right now 

It is no secret that artificial intelligence (ai) is changing how we operate as a society. It is already impacting the way we live and work. In this blog post, we will explore how ai is transforming the business of news.

The news industry is under duress. Advertising revenue, the lifeblood of most news organisations, is in decline. This is due to a perfect storm of factors, including the rise of social media, the growth of ad-blocking technology, and the migration of readers to mobile devices (where advertising rates are lower). 

In response, news organisations are turning to artificial intelligence to help them cut costs and increase revenues. For example, The Washington Post has developed an ai-powered news app called Heliograf. The app automates the production of stories about sporting events, elections, and other data-driven topics. 

Heliograf is just one example of how ai is being used by the news industry. Here are some other ways that ai is changing the business of news:

1. Automated fact-checking
2. Generating personalised news feeds
3. Automated content generation
4. Video editing and production
5. Sentiment analysis of social media data

Interesting huh? You may also find it interesting that I didn’t write that. An AI did. 

Here’s what I wrote: 

Let’s be clear. AI is often touted as the thing of the future, something we need to keep an eye on. I disagree. It’s here now and we need to be fully aware of the possibilities — and the pitfalls. Here are five examples of AI that have practical uses right now. 

The AI gave me two other options: 

It is no secret that artificial intelligence (ai) is changing how we operate as a society. It is already impacting the way we live and work. In this blog post, we will explore how ai is transforming the business of news.

OR

It was only a matter of time before artificial intelligence infiltrated the business world — and that time is now. AI has already begun to change how we operate, and the field of journalism is no exception. In this blog post, we will explore some of the ways in which AI is transforming the news industry. We will discuss how ai can help journalists gather data, analyze it, and create more accurate stories. We will also look at how AI can be used to improve customer service for news organizations.

All I did was choose and then hit enter a few times. I didn’t change a word. 

It’s pretty good huh? And that is the point I want to make clear: AI isn’t some far off technology. It’s here and ready to use. Here are the five practical examples of AI that can be used now, as I have written them:  

1. Automated article writing: AP, Gannett, WaPo amongst others have experimented with this. One of our sponsors, United Robots, has been working on creating automated articles from start to finish since 2015. It seems to be particularly good for long-tail content such as real estate and local sports. For this blog post, I used Jaspar. Sudowrite has also been recommended to me. The former creates content and auto publishes. The latter two need a prompt by way of the first paragraph and keywords. 

2. Artificial voice: We all know Siri and Alexa. And as airpods and home devices become more prevalent, this will be a growing area for many publishers. For example, Schibsted in Norway has been working on a synthetic voice to transform its text content into a different no-screen media (more on their view of the audio opportunity here). And last week, you may have noticed in my recommended reading the AI-generated podcast of Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs (more here), which of course introduces a whole set of challenges when it comes to deep fakes and the need for verification. 

3. AI-generated images: Dall E just opened up from its beta phase and can create images to any brief within seconds.   

   

4. Automated video: AI can also be used to generate relevant videos. Make recently announced its automated AI generation tool (more here). And here are 10 tools for automated video creation. 

5. Personalised news feeds: I touched on this in my report on personalisation here and my colleague Ariane Bernard has recently gone much deeper on the topic in her excellent report on as part of the INMA Smart Data Initiative, which you can find here.

Not falling into the category of news per se but still needs to be on your radar is how humans are now being depicted realistically in images. I was first confused and then slightly wowed by my neighbour in LA Lil’ Miquela on Instagram, who can easily be dismissed as gimmicky until you see the number of followers she has and the real dollars she gets in sponsorships. 

And the gaming engine Unreal released details of the metahumans it was making available almost two years ago (watch the short video here). 

Most of what I have written about here is not new — it’s here now. And now more than ever we can look at both how this can benefit our businesses and the many ethical questions that arise.

Date for the diary: INMA Product and Data for Media Summit, November 3-17

If you are interested in this, don’t miss Kay Firth Butterfield, head of AI and machine learning at the World Economic Forum, or the whole session on personalisation for news at the Product and Data for Media Summit. It starts this Thursday, can be watched live or on demand. It’s not too late to sign up. 

Are we too old?

The headline may not apply to you, but it probably does. This came up in a few of my conversations in London. Some stemmed from the same source: a conference looking at new technologies and what’s on the horizon.

Naturally for news product people, this means building for other generations. People who aren’t us. Does that mean that we are too old? 

While this is kind of funny, it’s also true. Not for everything. And not all new technology. 

As we’ve recently talked about targeting Gen Z, you need to have people native to the platforms you are planning on using. It’s important to understand the nuance. I consider myself an early adopter (my house is fully adapted to be a smart home, I usually have the latest Apple devices, and somewhere in a cupboard there is a VR headset collecting dust). But I don’t KNOW Snap. Or TikTok. I dip in and out. I haven’t grown up with it. 

But it’s not just different audiences or even different platforms. It’s new technologies. I understand a lot about the metaverse, a little of web3, and of course in this newsletter I have also written about AI and machine learning.

But when these technologies become mainstream, we need to find people who are truly native to them and use them on a day to day basis. And that’s likely not you and me. It’s more likely to be our kids. Just take a look at this chart (note that this is 2021 data. I suspect some of this has grown wider apart in 2022):

I tested the theory of being too old with other people. However Chris Duncan, CEO of Bauer UK, disagreed with me. He has seen many times that new technologies and processes internally can be adopted brilliantly by older age groups. It’s more about the individual willingness to adapt. And, of course, he is right. Age is not always a factor in adoption and the ability to understand something.

Maybe we don’t know what we don’t know. I just read an article by Axios on the use of emojis and how it can divide the workplace. The same emoji can be read very differently by people. We think we’re down with the kids, but we’re not. It’s not the technology itself. It’s how it’s used by different people. 

Now we are seeing new generations that are truly native to different things. We haven’t seen that before, at least not digitally. I’m sure you’ve heard it said that Facebook is for old people, Instagram is for middle-aged people, Snap for Millennials, TikTiok for Gen Z. Apparently a quarter of U.S. adults under 30 now get their news from TikTok.

Coming back to the conference that started this debate, Kara Chiles, senior vice president/consumer product at Gannett, commented to me: “We need less build-for and more build-with. During this conference, we had all these enthusiastic digital publishers in the room. We were lacking the group we need as part of the conversation: Gen Z. All of these efforts are about figuring out what this next audience wants, and they were largely under-represented in the room. Easiest thing in the world to do: Ask them what they want.”

So here’s where I landed: You need both. We need the people who understand the nuances of business, new technologies, and launching new products — those likely older with some experience under their belt — as well as the people who fully understand how to maximise the use of a platform of technology. Maybe this is one person but likely not. It’s helpful to have counter views and to look at all sides of a story.

Tweet of the week

Nicely illustrating the above point is this tweet. It’s 2021 data, so I suspect it’s already out of date.

Bonus picture

This is what real life in-person meetings look like. In the UK, a pub is often involved. 

Recommended reading

• An AI Might Have Written This on AI as a writing tool (yes, you read that right).
• Ezra Eeman’s presentation on Rethinking the newsroom with AI.

About this newsletter 

Today’s newsletter is written by Jodie Hopperton, based in Los Angeles and lead for the INMA Product Initiative. Jodie will share research, case studies, and thought leadership on the topic of global news media product.

This newsletter is a public face of the Product Initiative by INMA, outlined here. E-mail Jodie at jodie.hopperton@inma.org with thoughts, suggestions, and questions. Sign up to our Slack channel.

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