The AI-powered newsroom

The promise of AI in the newsroom is contradictory: NLG revolutionizes news writing, but robot journalists threaten jobs; NLP improves fact-checking but requires investments that slimmed-down newsrooms cannot afford. Drawing on Norwegian AI startup Orbits experience, Codruta Gamulea explains how AI can help solve the industry resource constraints and improve the quality of journalism.

Today’s news consumers are exposed to innumerable and disconnected news sources on various topics. In an attempt to get an objective overview of current debates and form an opinion on important issues (Brexit, the refugee crisis in Europe, etc.), readers expect their trusted news brands to play a curator role and help them “digest” the overwhelming news picture. Traditional news publishers recognize the importance of taking on the curator role by analyzing and decoding the news picture for their audiences, not least through discussion and debate. This type of in-depth analysis, however, puts a resource strain on already drastically slimmed-down newsrooms. In other words, to keep up with consumers’ needs and behavior, news publishers need to do more with fewer resources. Recent technology advances in artificial intelligence provide an answer to the aforementioned challenge. Norwegian digital studio and venture builder Bakken & Bæck has developed Orbit, an AI technology platform for AI-powered newsrooms. The technology was developed in Bakken & Bæck’s AI Research Lab in Bonn, Germany, where several data scientists work with artificial intelligence and machine learning. Drawing on Orbit’s experience, Codruta Gamulea explains how AI can help solve the news industry’s resource constraints and improve the quality of journalism and shares key takeaways gleaned from four years of work creating innovative services based on this technology for several media companies. Topics include: