About this Webinar

What key AI trends are emerging in newsrooms is the focus of the first Webinar of INMA’s newly reimagined Newsroom Innovation Initiative.

It's 2026, and innovative newsrooms across the globe are using AI for a range of tasks. What are the key trends that are emerging? How can we ensure that we are prepared for the future and that editorial integrity remains central to all our efforts? How can collaboration help us get there faster?

Our speakers bring a holistic view of the news industry from a wealth of experience. First, we will hear from Dr. Ole Fehling, senior manager of data science at Highberg Consulting, and Dr. Christoph Mayer, lead of the data & AI practice and partner at Highberg, who will outline how a group of German news publishers banded together to share data and move faster, collectively, than any of them could individually, through the DRIVE initiative. The result was innovation that has enabled 5,000 editors from participating publishers to use data-driven actions in their daily routines.

We will also hear from Florent Daudens, cofounder of Mizal AI, who has fostered a global journalist community around open-source software and now works with newsrooms to help them use AI more effectively. He will highlight emerging trends and actions that reporters and editors can take now to be more effective.

About Florent Daudens

Florent is the cofounder of Mizal AI. He previously led AI and media innovation at Hugging Face and also spent many years as a journalist and newsroom leader as managing editor at Le Devoir and head of international, political, and newsgathering teams at CBC/Radio-Canada. Those years on the frontlines of journalism ground his work in the realities of reporting and running newsrooms under pressure. He has been featured as an expert in international publications and is regularly invited to speak at industry events and lead workshops at universities including Columbia, Northwestern, LSE, Oxford, and CUNY.

About Dr. Ole Fehling and Dr. Christoph Mayer

Ole is senior manager of data science at Highberg Consulting. Since 2021, he has been the technical lead of the DRIVE initiative, which brings together 30 regional news publishers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Christoph is a partner at Highberg who leads the data & AI practice. He has over 12 years of experience in designing data strategies and developing technical data infrastructure, AI algorithms and organisational structures.