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13 nuggets from our AI Special

James Evelegh picks out some of the key takeaways from our recently published AI Special.

By James Evelegh

13 nuggets from our AI Special
Top (L-R): Jennifer Schivas, Jody Doherty-Cove, Markus Karlsson, Sara Forni, Brian Alford; Middle (L-R): Daniel Lord, Hannah Williams, Aliya Itzkowitz, Stewart Robinson, Robin Booth; Bottom (L-R): Derek Milne, Tom Pijsel, John Barnes.

In the May / June issue of InPublishing magazine, which was sent out this week, we ran an AI Special, containing thirteen articles from leading publishers and suppliers.

This coming Wednesday (the 26th) at 2.30, we are holding an ‘AI Special - Q&A’ webinar in which all the contributors will be available to answer your questions. So, please have a read through the articles, register for the webinar and come along armed with your questions. If you know what you want to ask ahead of time, then please feel free to email me your question in advance and it will help get the ball rolling.

To whet your appetite, I have picked out a nugget from each:

  • “Understanding what your drivers are, for example, cost saving vs revenue generation vs opening new markets, will help you focus on selecting the most valuable path forward, as well as give you the outcomes you want to measure success against.” (Generating ROI from AI, by Jennifer Schivas, CEO of 67 Bricks)
  • “I always say that an AI cannot share a coffee with a councillor in the town hall chambers, nor earn the trust of a grieving mother… But what it can do is alleviate the burden of the mundane and win back time for the rest of the newsroom to capitalise on that.” (How we’re using AI at Newsquest, by Jody Doherty-Cove, head of editorial AI)
  • “The sweet spot right now is to use AI to leverage the existing media archives, and to add value to new content and experiences as they are being created.” (Using AI for new product development, by Markus Karlsson, CEO of Affino)
  • “At the moment, the main use cases of AI in journalism concern text production, in practices such as suggesting headlines and summarising articles, creating copy for sharing on social media and incipits and summaries for newsletters and other publications.” (Using AI for journalism, by Sara Forni, AI product manager at Atex)
  • “The ability to analyse entire archives of content across multiple formats opens up new opportunities, for example, turning print archives into digital text and video content which is good for SEO and content discoverability.” (Using AI for content discoverability, by Brian Alford, founder and CEO of Bright Sites)
  • “IP lawyers have been quick to get up to speed with GenAI – but it’s your responsibility to have thought about your business model, and know where it may evolve, and therefore what can be shared and how, versus what needs to be protected and from what.” (AI – the licensing & IP implications, by Daniel Lord, founder and CEO of Content Catalyst)
  • “Stay iterative. Capabilities, tools, and use cases are changing and evolving all the time. As is the ecosystem in which publishers exist. Deciding on a 5-year strategy for GenAI use is pointless.” (How we’re using AI at Immediate Media, by Hannah Williams, MD, digital content)
  • “The question for any personalisation project is: will this drive engagement over the longer term? (note: some formats may actually result in less time-on-page but more loyalty longer-term.) Select 2-3 metrics to track for any experiment to prove the value to the end user.” (Using AI for personalisation, by Aliya Itzkowitz, manager at FT Strategies)
  • “The immediate future will see more of the capabilities available now fully integrated into CMS and production platforms, to become ‘on tap’ for publishing teams rather than seen as external, supportive technology.” (Using AI to create workflow efficiencies, by Stewart Robinson, managing director of Full Fat Things)
  • “AI isn’t an out-of-the-box technology. It requires considerable input before and after going live. Each site has been a custom implementation. It is a very fluid and dynamic process.” (How we’re using AI at emap, by Robin Booth, managing director)
  • “The ability to create stunning images in seconds, add precise metadata and manipulate the content with words, offers a transformative approach for publishers.” (Using AI for image creation & editing, by Derek Milne, commercial pixometrist at Pixometry)
  • “Content nowadays is re-used without fully optimising it for alternative channels or titles because of the manual work involved. This is where AI can help… AI can be a game changer in time-consuming content tasks. For instance, it can assist in copy-fitting an article under a tight deadline.” (Using AI for content optimisation, by Tom Pijsel, VP product management at WoodWing)
  • “We are employing generative AI across various areas: Images (for creating highly specific images when stock photos are unavailable), Marketing (we have developed an internal AI agent in Microsoft Teams (using OpenAI) that assists our marketers in crafting emails for events), Data (we utilise AI agents to enrich our datasets) and Translation (we utilise AI tools to translate text for sending marketing emails in various languages).” (How we’re using AI at William Reed, by John Barnes, chief digital officer)

Want to know more? Then come along to the webinar on Wednesday. See you there.


You can catch James Evelegh’s regular column in the InPubWeekly newsletter, which you can register to receive here.