Generative AI is here: half of the newsrooms seem already to be using various tools

July 20, 2023
Marco Boscolo
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Insights from the report "Gauging Generative AI’s Impact on Newsroom", collecting inputs from 101 newsroom editors, journalists, and other newsroom staff worldwide.

A recent post at ENJOI’s Observatory examined the difficulties of dealing with AI. Two researchers analyzed more than 50 articles about AI from major publications in the English language and concluded that 18 flaws exist in reporting on different aspects of AI. For a certain part, it seems that new and disruptive technology, such as generative AI, is still not well understood by many journalists. Nonetheless, many of them are already using different iterations of such technology. This is one of the findings of a recent survey conducted by the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) in collaboration with Schickler, a consultancy company: 49% of the respondents declared that their newsroom is already working with generative AI tools such as ChatGPT.

The report Gauging Generative AI’s Impact on Newsroom received replies from 101 newsroom editors, journalists, and other newsroom staff worldwide. 70% of the participants said they expect Generative AI tools to be helpful for their journalists and newsrooms, while 2% believe they see no value in the short term. 10% of the respondents are uncertain about it.

How newsrooms are using AI tools

The most exciting uses of generative AI tools for journalists are their ability to digest and condense information effortlessly in summaries and bullet points. Here are the most common replies from the report:

  • Text creation in the form of summaries and bullet points (54%);
  • Simplified research (44%);
  • Workflow/efficiency (43%);
  • Text correction (43%);
  • Content creation (pieces) (32%);
  • Topic ideation (32%);
  • Translation (32%);
  • More personalization/interaction (19%).

As emerging from the report, the use of AI tech is quite widespread, but only a few newsrooms have internal guidelines for the use of such tools. Moreover, the majority of the publishers have a straightforward approach to the topic. Almost half of the respondents declare they have no limitation in using AI tools in any way they think is adequate. Only 20% of the respondents said that their organization’s management had established guidelines on the technology.

Inaccuracy of the information and plagiarism is the primary concern for 85% of the respondents. This fact is fascinating, as many of the same respondents - as stated above - are already using the technology without any guidelines.

If you want to know more, download the Gauging Generative AI’s impact on Newsroom report.

 

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