• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, April 23, 2025

AI is sweeping the publishing world in many new ways, judging by Leading Newsrooms In The Age Of Generative AI, the latest EBU News Report. But the opening paragraph seems over the top: “Do we realize how lucky we are? To be alive in a  time is as important as the arrival of the printing press, Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci.” 

That remains to be seen.

Case in point: the study states, “The political shift in the US has led tech companies to prioritize speed over ethical concerns.”

That hardly evokes Michelangelo or da Vinci.

Then there are these negative impacts (and we quote):

• Business models are still unclear – even for tech companies. 
• Media companies haven’t measured their return on investment for AI innovations. 
• The media does not have a joint bargaining approach in dealing with tech giants. 
• Copyright issues have not been resolved. 
• Persisting accuracy and hallucination problems have made media companies hesitant to launch audience-facing products. 
• AI is still siloed in media companies; most processes have remained untouched. 
• Many newsrooms still lack AI policies, particularly smaller ones.

Granted, AI also brings many benefits to the business. The study lists these:

• Tech has developed rapidly, as witnessed in agentic AI, new models, and AI featuring in search and everyday software. 
• Mundane tasks like translation and transcription have seen massive improvements in quality. 
• The launch of DeepSeek in China has increased global competition and an efficiency race. 
• Sizeable parts of the public have adopted the use of AI tools. 
• News organizations have made progress in AI implementation. 
• Individual journalists have made AI part of their toolbox.

Which AI uses are most important? Publishers cite these tasks, according to a survey of 297 respondents by the Reuters Institute, the study notes: 

• Back-end automation (e.g. tagging/transcription/ copyediting etc.)—60%
• Distribution and recommendation (e.g. personalized home pages, alerts, etc.)—41% 
• Content creation albeit with human oversight (e.g. summaries, headlines, graphics, video)—30% 
• Commercial uses (e.g. better propensity to pay models etc.)—29% 
• Coding and product development—28% 
• Newsgathering (e.g. help identifying stories/interrogate data)—24%

This report is based on in-depth interviews with 20 media leaders and academic experts. The EBU’s members operate almost 2,000 television, radio and online channels and offer content across other platforms.