When ChatGPT was launched at the end of 2022 it started an earnest conversation about how the rise of generative artificial intelligence will impact the media industry. Three years later and the debate still rages, with every week bringing new opinions, predictions and developments involving AI.
Just last month, 14 publishers including Condé Nast, The Atlantic and Forbes filed a lawsuit against Cohere, accusing the AI startup of allegedly using thousands of copyrighted works to train its AI models without permission.
Meanwhile, The Guardian recently became the latest news publisher to sign a deal with OpenAI, ensuring the newspaper receives compensation for the use of its journalism on ChatGPT and gets properly credited on the platform.
Late last year, the British daily also joined the likes of Daily Mail publisher DMG Media, Sky News and Prospect in making content available to generative AI platform Prorata.ai, which shares revenue with publishers each time their content is used to answer a user query.
The debate on how to deal with rapid emergence of new tech is happening at the highest levels of government, with Keir Starmer announcing the UK would follow the recommendations of the AI Opportunities Action Plan, which calls for the “reform of the UK text and data mining regime so that it is at least as competitive as the EU”.
The announcement was met by a plea from the Creative Rights In AI Coalition – which counts FIPP, the Financial Times and the Associated Press amongst its members – for the government to provide assurances that all options in the Copyright and AI Consultation, including enforcing the existing copyright regime with transparency provisions, remain on the table.
With publishers trying find the ideal path towards AI integration, the latest FIPP Innovation in Media World Report acts as a valuable roadmap.
Complied by Juan Señor and Jayant Sriram of Innovation Media Consulting in partnership with FIPP, the annual report explores the most profitable developments impacting media today. The study uses a vast network of 90 consultants globally, who gather examples of publishers excelling in every aspect of the industry – including the use of AI.
[FIPP members] Download AI chapter from Innovation in Media World Report here. Not a member yet? You can join here or buy the report at a non-member rate.
The report gauges the general mood when it comes to artificial intelligence, finding that AI is already being used for various tasks such as crafting social media posts, newsletters, headlines, translation, transcribing interviews, story drafts, and multimedia production including social graphics and videos.
The report cites a number of real-world examples of AI being successfully integrated by media companies including Mediacorp introducing “AI Weather”; Schibsted, the Nordic region’s largest media conglomerate, embracing AI to enhance its newsroom operations; and Newsquest building an in-house tool that drafts stories based on trusted information.
To further guide media companies, the Innovation in Media World Report identifies a list of tools that can propel a newsroom into the AI generation and looks at seven key considerations for media leaders when drawing up an AI strategy, according to Damian Radcliffe, Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism – University of Oregon.
According to co-author Juan Señor, the President of Innovation Media Consulting, the report shows publishing in general has realised it can’t make the same mistakes it made with social and digital, with website and search.
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“We cannot build a business on somebody else’s platform. And that’s the key strategic priority,” he told FIPP.
“(In 2023) we said let’s get this one right. Let’s not rush into it. There’s no strategic advantage for us to rush into this and let’s block scraping. And most publishers have blocked scraping and now we’re seeing the emergence of the first licensing deals.
“There are so many tools out there to basically make our publishing more efficient and faster and more productive, but obviously with the provisor that we then are going to apply it to doing new content and new journalism.”
[FIPP members] Download AI chapter from Innovation in Media World Report here. Not a member yet? You can join here or buy the report at a non-member rate.