A couple of years ago, the AI question for most publishers was whether to experiment. That has been settled. AI is now at work in newsrooms, archives, ad sales and production, and the harder conversation is about what it is doing to the business around it.
Search is the pressure point. Answer engines summarise journalism without sending the reader on, and referral traffic is falling as a result. Publishers are split between signing licensing deals and blocking crawlers, with more of them now looking to negotiate collectively. Before any contract is signed, it is worth knowing which of your content is genuinely hard to replace and exactly what rights are being sold.
AI might be able to knock out something quickly, but speed isn’t the same as value and fluency isn’t the same as truth.
Toby Wiseman AI in practice: Hearst UK
Inside the business the picture is brighter. Regional groups use AI-assisted reporting for routine local stories, which frees other reporters to get out of the office. B2B publishers have turned deep archives into search tools that answer readers' questions, and at least one has sold subscriptions off the back of it.
Whether the human checks survive cost pressure is the open question. So far, the industry's bet is that original, specialist journalism and a direct relationship with readers will hold their value however the technology moves.
Below you'll find some of our best feature articles on AI in publishing, from licensing strategy and search to newsroom case studies and editorial policy, alongside our latest news and industry commentary.
Before rushing in to make deals with AI companies, publishers need to properly evaluate the value of their content, says Sajeeda Merali, CEO of the Professional Publishers Association.
The biggest puzzle for publishers today is where to find audiences and how to keep them. How to meet this challenge was the focus of the latest AOP CRUNCH event, writes AOP’s Richard Reeves.
emap’s Nursing Times was quick to explore the potential of AI when it launched its LLM search service last year. Sixteen months on, Robin Booth tells us what they’ve achieved so far and how they plan to use AI next.
Newsquest has published over 10,000 articles with the aid of AI. Jody Doherty-Cove, head of editorial AI, tells us how and why Newsquest is deploying AI across its newsrooms.
Toby Wiseman, MD, content, tells us how Hearst UK is using AI now and where he sees the best opportunities for future development.
Most publishers are trialling AI tools to some degree, but how many are actually seeing quantifiable benefits from their efforts? Meg Carter talks to Ana Jakimovska, head of AI strategy at Mediahuis, about their approach to AI adoption.
Steve Pinches, chief product and technology officer at Which?, looks at the tech opportunities and challenges facing his company and the wider consumer publishing sector.
Peter Barr-Watson, chief technology officer at The Independent, looks at the tech opportunities and challenges facing his company and the wider news media sector.
Reuters Institute’s ‘Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2026’ report shows how publishers are reacting to the twin threats from AI answer engines and human creators, writes Nic Newman.
Having humans involved in the process has been what’s given publishers the license to explore all that artificial intelligence has to offer…
The pandemic’s toll on traditional US media has been severe and, not surprisingly, most deadly for newspapers and smaller magazine media companies, writes Karlene Lukovitz.
Some industries are making great strides in how they use AI, but what about publishing? Many news organisations will struggle to reap the potential benefits, unless they learn to work together.
Robot journalists, far from replacing human ones, are enabling publishers to expand into areas that would have been impossible using only human reporters. Take football for instance.
At the recent PPA Leadership Summit, Richard Neville gave attendees an insight into DC Thomson Media’s Programme Apollo project.
In our latest webinar, Lineup’s Joe Cronin focused on subscription trends. James Evelegh picks out some of the takeaways from his presentation.
Is the way your team does things the most productive use of their time? Or are they doing things because that’s the way they’ve always done them? Asking questions like these can help free up hundreds of hours of editorial time, says Sean Briggs.
For many companies, digital transformation has accelerated this year. We grab five minutes with Affino CEO Markus Karlsson to discuss some of the options and opportunities facing publishers as we head into 2021.
Alexa is a growing channel that publishers can leverage to push content out, to strengthen or build a new following. David Coveney from Interconnect has some ideas up his sleeve on how to use the technology to enhance your content marketing strategy.
Reach Labs, the recently formed innovations hub at Reach plc, is launching its first standalone product, Memory Lane, powered by AI.
Naviga has announced the launch of Naviga Publisher, a new product that automates the print production workflow. It’s powered by Sophi.io, an AI system developed by The Globe and Mail.
HYMAG, 'The World's Largest Collection of Magazines' is currently under threat of closure, exacerbated by Covid's global disruption of business and daily living. James Hyman appeals for your help.
The SoE has expressed concern following a warning by a human rights organisation that social media companies are taking down content that could threaten future journalistic investigations.
Reach is relaunching its commenting platform across its portfolio of 51 national and local digital brands including The Mirror, Express, Star and live network of sites.
Wired has announced a new virtual conference, Wired Health:Tech.
Archant has announced the launch of Local Recall, a project to digitise 150 years of archived newspapers and make them widely available online via voice activated services.
