Freeing up newsroom time: How Amedia’s AI sandbox will allow reporters to do more

Summary

The Innovate Local webinar featured Marcus Rasanen, Director of News at Norwegian Local Media Group A-pressen, discussing the launch of their AI Sandbox for journalists. The tool aims to streamline local newsroom tasks and enhance journalistic efficiency without compromising trust and quality. Rasanen highlighted the importance of using AI responsibly and the potential for journalists to guide product development through their use of the sandbox. The webinar also touched on the challenges of integrating AI into journalism and the need for transparency with readers regarding AI involvement in news creation.

Takeaways

• 🌟 The webinar is part of the 'Innovate Local' program, a global forum for local media professionals to exchange ideas and solutions.
• 📚 The program is designed for news media companies operating within their own geographical communities, focusing on local journalism's unique opportunities and challenges.
• 🤖 Marcus Rasanen, Director of News at Norwegian Local Media Group, discussed the launch of an AI sandbox for journalists, aiming to save time in local newsrooms.
• 🚀 The AI sandbox is a tool that leverages AI to assist journalists in their work, with the goal of enhancing storytelling and local news coverage.
• 🔐 The sandbox prioritizes trust and responsible use of AI, with guidelines to ensure AI is used ethically and does not compromise journalistic integrity.
• 💡 Marcus demonstrated the sandbox's capabilities in a live demo, showing how it can help journalists quickly summarize documents and generate article ideas.
• 📈 The sandbox collects data on journalists' usage patterns to inform future product development and tailor AI tools to better fit the needs of local newsrooms.
• 🛠️ The AI sandbox is a living tool, constantly evolving with input from journalists and developers to improve its functionality.
• 📝 There is an emphasis on transparency with readers, suggesting that journalists should disclose when AI tools have been used in creating content.
• 🌐 The 'Innovate Local' program is accessible on-demand, with webinars and resources available for local media professionals worldwide.

Q & A

What is the purpose of the 'Innovate Local' webinar series?

The 'Innovate Local' webinar series is the first global forum for local media, designed to create a space where media professionals can exchange actionable and scalable ideas with a focus on opportunities and problems particular to the business of local journalism.

Who are the hosts of the 'Innovate Local' webinar?

Cecilia Campbell H, the program editor, and Nicholas Yason H, the program director, are the hosts of the 'Innovate Local' webinar.

How often do the 'Innovate Local' webinars take place?

The 'Innovate Local' webinars take place twice a month, every other Wednesday at 3:00 European time.

What type of topics are covered in the 'Innovate Local' webinars?

The webinars cover a variety of editorial and business topics that are particularly relevant to local media.

Who is Marcus Rasanen and what is his role in the webinar?

Marcus Rasanen is the Director of News at Norwegian Local Media Group A/S Media, and he represents one of the founding member companies of 'Innovate Local'. He discusses the AI sandbox launched for journalists and what they hope to achieve with it.

What is the main goal of the AI sandbox launched by A/S Media?

The main goal of the AI sandbox is to help local journalists save time and improve efficiency in their work by utilizing AI tools, while ensuring data security and maintaining the trust of their readers.

How does the AI sandbox interface work?

The AI sandbox interface allows journalists to interact with AI tools in a controlled environment. It logs their use to gather data for product improvements and offers functionalities like summarizing articles, generating headlines, and converting text to audio.

What are some of the guidelines established by A/S Media for using AI in journalism?

Some guidelines include not using photorealistic AI-generated images to illustrate articles, not putting sensitive information into third-party services, and being transparent with readers about the use of AI tools in creating content.

How does A/S Media plan to use the data collected from the AI sandbox?

A/S Media plans to use the data collected from the AI sandbox to understand the usage patterns and business needs of their journalists. This knowledge will guide the development of their AI tools and influence product development within the company.

What is the 'Editorial AI Hub' and what is its purpose?

The 'Editorial AI Hub' is an initiative by A/S Media that connects newsrooms, journalists, development resources, and the AI team. Its purpose is to explore innovative ways to use AI tools and to guide the development of AI applications within the organization.

How can other local media companies benefit from the AI sandbox?

Other local media companies can benefit from the AI sandbox by implementing a similar controlled environment for their journalists to use AI tools efficiently and safely. This can lead to increased productivity, cost-efficiency, and the ability to experiment with various AI functionalities.

Outlines

00:00

🌟 Introduction to Innovate Local Webinar

The video script opens with Cecilia Campbell H warmly welcoming participants to the third Innovate Local webinar, highlighting the international presence with attendees from 20-30 countries. Cecilia introduces herself as the program editor and her colleague Nicholas Yason H, the program director. They express excitement about their partnership with WAN-IFRA to deliver the program aimed at local media professionals worldwide. The purpose of Innovate Local is to foster a global forum for exchanging ideas within the local media industry, focusing on unique opportunities and challenges. The program is designed for news media companies operating within their geographical communities and features two case webinars per month. Today's focus is on the AI sandbox launched by Norwegian Local Media Group, with Marcus Rasanen, the director of news, discussing its potential impact on journalists.

05:01

🛠️ Utilizing AI Sandbox for Local Journalism

Marcus Rasanen shares his perspective on the capabilities of AI in local journalism, suggesting that with minimal development work, significant advancements can be achieved using existing tools. He provides a background of his experience and introduces A-Media, a large network of newspapers in Norway with over a thousand journalists and a strong focus on subscription-based revenue. Marcus emphasizes the importance of local newsrooms and the need for AI to support, not replace, the human element of journalism. He also addresses the global challenges faced by the media industry, such as rising costs and inflation, and outlines the AI sandbox's role in helping journalists work more efficiently with fewer resources while maintaining reader trust.

10:02

🤖 Trust and AI in Media: Balancing Act

The script delves into the challenges of trust in the media industry when integrating AI technologies. Marcus discusses the potential for AI to compromise trust if not used responsibly, citing examples of misuse by local newspapers in Norway. He outlines the guidelines established by A-Media to ensure AI is used in an innovative yet trustworthy manner, emphasizing the importance of not using AI to generate misleading images or content. Marcus also highlights the need to protect content from being used to train large language models without control or consent, underscoring the importance of maintaining trust and editorial integrity.

15:05

📈 AI Sandbox Interface and Functionality

Marcus demonstrates the AI sandbox interface, explaining its dual purpose of controlling content input and leveraging the collective usage data of journalists to guide product development. The sandbox is designed to be a living tool that evolves based on the needs and feedback of journalists. It currently includes features like summarizing articles, generating headlines, and converting text to audio. Marcus showcases a live demo, using the sandbox to quickly create a news article summary and suggesting potential sources for an interview, highlighting the efficiency gains possible with AI assistance.

20:06

📝 Enhancing Journalism with AI Tools

The script continues with Marcus discussing the potential of AI to enhance journalistic tasks, such as summarizing lengthy documents and generating headlines. He emphasizes the importance of precise prompts to achieve accurate results and mentions the creation of an editorial AI Hub to connect newsrooms with development resources. The Hub aims to foster innovation and guide product development based on journalists' experiences with AI tools. Marcus also outlines the potential future features for the AI sandbox, such as a brainstormer and auto writer, designed to further streamline journalistic work.

25:06

🔒 Ensuring Data Security and Flexibility with AI Sandbox

Marcus highlights the benefits of the AI sandbox in terms of data security, cost-efficiency, and flexibility. He explains that the sandbox allows A-Media to control which AI tools are used and how they are integrated into the journalistic workflow. The sandbox also provides insights into journalists' usage patterns, which can inform product development. Marcus encourages journalists to use the sandbox without fear, while also emphasizing the importance of fact-checking and ethical considerations when using AI-generated content.

30:08

🗣️ Communicating AI Use to Readers

The script addresses the question of transparency with readers regarding the use of AI in journalism. Marcus states that while it is up to each editor to decide how to communicate this, A-Media recommends being explicit about the use of AI tools in articles. This aligns with the company's guidelines, which stress the importance of maintaining trust with readers. Marcus also shares that all editors and journalists have access to the AI sandbox, and while there is no requirement to use it, there is an encouragement to explore its potential.

35:08

📅 Upcoming Innovate Local Webinar

Cecilia Campbell H concludes the webinar by thanking Marcus for his presentation and live demo, and she provides information about the next Innovate Local webinar, which will feature a case from Tamedia in Switzerland. The topic will focus on audience development and how Tamedia has successfully implemented hyper-local newsletters for small communities. The webinar aims to inspire and provide actionable insights for local media professionals, and Cecilia encourages participants to share the information within their organizations.

Keywords

💡Innovate Local

Innovate Local is the name of the program being discussed in the video. It is the first global forum for local media, designed to create a space for media professionals to exchange actionable and scalable ideas. The program focuses on opportunities and problems particular to the business of local journalism. In the script, Innovate Local is mentioned as a platform that brings together local media professionals from across the world, with the aim of fostering innovation and collaboration in the field of local news.

💡AI Sandbox

The AI Sandbox is a new initiative launched by the Norwegian local media group A-Media, as discussed by Marcus Rasanen, the director of news at the company. It is a tool designed to help journalists by utilizing artificial intelligence to streamline their work. In the script, the AI Sandbox is highlighted as a way to free up time in local newsrooms, allowing journalists to focus more on meeting people and telling stories, rather than getting bogged down in routine tasks.

💡Local Media Professionals

Local media professionals are individuals who work in news media companies that operate within their own geographical communities. The video script emphasizes the importance of this group, as they are the target audience for the Innovate Local program. These professionals are looking for ways to improve and innovate in their local newsrooms, and the script discusses how the AI Sandbox can assist them in this endeavor.

💡Actionable Ideas

Actionable ideas refer to suggestions or concepts that can be directly implemented or put into action. In the context of the video, the Innovate Local program aims to facilitate the exchange of such ideas among local media professionals. The script mentions that these ideas should be scalable and focused on the specific opportunities and problems of local journalism, indicating the practical nature of the program's goals.

💡Opportunities and Problems

The terms 'opportunities' and 'problems' are used in the script to describe the dual focus of the Innovate Local program. Opportunities refer to potential areas for growth and advancement in local journalism, while problems denote the challenges that local newsrooms face. The video aims to address both by providing a forum for discussion and the sharing of solutions, as exemplified by the AI Sandbox initiative.

💡Media Industry

The media industry encompasses the various platforms and organizations involved in the production and distribution of news and entertainment content. In the script, the media industry is the broader context in which the Innovate Local program operates. It is mentioned that both Cecilia Campbell H and Nicholas Yason H have worked internationally within the media industry, indicating their experience and expertise in this field.

💡A-Media

A-Media is a Norwegian local media group that consists of more than 120 newspapers across Norway. In the script, A-Media is highlighted as one of the founding member companies of the Innovate Local program. Marcus Rasanen, the director of news at A-Media, discusses the AI Sandbox, which is a significant initiative by the company to leverage AI technology in local newsrooms.

💡Subscription Model

The subscription model is a business approach where customers pay a periodic fee to access content or services. In the context of the video, A-Media's business model is primarily geared towards subscriptions, indicating a shift towards a reader-supported revenue stream. The script mentions the company's efforts in digitalizing their subscriber base, which is a key aspect of adapting to the subscription model.

💡Digitalization

Digitalization refers to the process of converting information into a digital format. In the script, digitalization is discussed in relation to A-Media's efforts to transition their services and subscriber base to digital platforms. This includes the use of AI tools like the AI Sandbox to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of their digital news operations.

💡Fact-Checking

Fact-checking is the act of verifying the accuracy of information, which is a critical aspect of journalism. In the script, Marcus Rasanen discusses the importance of fact-checking when using AI tools like the AI Sandbox. He mentions that while AI can assist in generating content, it is still essential for journalists to verify the information to maintain trust and credibility.

Highlights

Introduction of the third regular Innovate Local webinar with a global audience.

Cecilia Campbell H and Nicholas Yason H, the program editor and director, respectively, discuss the Innovate Local program's aim to connect local media professionals worldwide.

Innovate Local is the first global forum dedicated to local media, focusing on opportunities and problems unique to local journalism.

The program is designed for anyone working in a news media company operating within a specific geographical community.

Two case webinars are delivered monthly, featuring one publisher case at a time, addressing a defined problem or opportunity.

Webinars are held every other Wednesday at 3:00 European time and cover editorial and business topics relevant to local media.

Marcus Rasanen, Director of News at Norwegian Local Media Group, discusses the new AI Sandbox launched for journalists.

AI Sandbox aims to free up time in local newsrooms and maintain the human element in storytelling.

AI is positioned as an opportunity to support local newsrooms, not replace the personal touch in journalism.

AI Sandbox is designed to help journalists like Oanes extract more value from interactions with local individuals.

Trust is highlighted as a critical component in the global news industry, especially with the introduction of AI.

AI Sandbox includes guidelines to ensure responsible use of AI in journalism.

Live demo of the AI Sandbox interface and its functionalities for journalists.

Examples of using AI Sandbox to summarize articles and generate headlines, showcasing increased efficiency.

AI Sandbox is a living tool that adapts and evolves based on the use cases and needs of journalists.

The AI Sandbox project aims to incorporate AI tools into the workflow of every journalist in a controlled and safe manner.

AI Hub connects newsrooms with development resources and AI teams to innovate and influence product development.

Feedback from journalists is used to guide the development of new features for the AI Sandbox.

The webinar concludes with a Q&A session addressing questions about the AI Sandbox's functionality and future plans.

Transcripts

all right let's get this show on the

road so hello and a very warm welcome to

our third regular innovate local webinar

it's fantastic to have people joining us

from over um 20 30 countries across all

continents uh and I do hope you'll find

today's case valuable and inspiring um

my name is Cecilia Campbell H and I'm

the innovate local program editor and

with me I have program director Nicholas

yason H and the two of us took the idea

of innovate local to WAN ifra uh and

we're very happy to be partnering with

them to deliver the program bringing

together local media professionals

across the world um Nicholas and I have

both worked in the media industry

internationally uh but we're now back in

our country of origin which is Sweden

Nicholas lives in Stockholm I live in

malma in the South and today we're

really happy to be joined by Marcus

rasanen who um is director of news at

Norwegian local media group or media

we're extra happy to have Marcus here as

he represents one of our founding member

companies so thank you for your support

Marcus it's much

appreciated Marcus is going to talk

about yeah good to see you Marcus is

going to talk about uh the brand new AI

sandbox they launched to their thousand

thousand journalists last week and what

they're H hoping to achieve with that if

you have any questions during the

webinar please put them in the Q&A

section at the bottom of the zoom

interface and then we'll have a Q&A uh

uh session at the end of the

presentation before I hand over to

Marcus let me just say a few words about

this

program so innovate local is the first

global forum for local media the idea is

to create a space where media

professionals can exchange actionable

and scalable ideas with a focus on

opportunities and problems that are

particular uh to the business of local

journalism um the program is aimed at

anyone working in news media company

which operates in its own geographical

community so until now there's been no

International Forum with a focus on the

particular problems and opportunities of

local media so uh yes newsrooms and

markets defer from region to region from

country to Country so I think that's why

there's not been anything till now but

we've see is that the needs of local me

people and local businesses have more in

common than not across different

countries so that's our starting point

there's no Silver Bullet but there is

lots of ground baking work being done by

Folks at local news Publishers all over

the world so we want to bring you all

together and this program is for you and

by you we're delivering two case

webinars a month presented by one of you

uh each webinar features one publisher

case and focuses on how they worked with

one clearly defined problem or

opportunity so the webinars take place

every other Wednesday at 3:00 European

time uh and they will cover all kinds of

editorial and business topics which are

particularly relevant to local media

some will be more of more interest to

you than others depending on what your

role is at your company so the idea is

that you can tap into this resource when

it suits you and of course all webinars

will be available to watch On Demand

afterwards so we'll publish the webinars

write up of cases and other resources

all on the innovate Local website so

have a look there all right let's get on

to today's case Marcus welcome to

innovate locco thank you so much for

being here today to tell us about how AR

media is hoping to free up time in the

local newsrooms by creating an AI

sandbox as a tool for all your local

journalists I'll let you explain

how all right yeah I'll try thank you

very much for the introduction Cecilia

I'm very very very happy to be talking

to all of you so the most nerve-wracking

moment of any webinar of course is

sharing your screen no amount of AI

sandboxing will will help us do

that uh I think we're good can you

confirm

Cecilia I can conf I can confirm yes

perfect

yeah so um yeah um I'm really thrilled

to be part of uh of this webinar series

because I think it's um it's something

that the international scene for Journal

journalism has lacked as cilia so

eloquently explained um for us um we

wanted to sort of um put the spotlight

on the opportunities that AI represent

and also uh try to make it as relevant

as possible for even smaller Publishers

or Standalone newspapers newsrooms uh

it's my opinion that what we do here uh

you can probably do 80 to 90% of it uh

with little to know development work

just by using available tools today so

that that is the basis of what I'm going

to show you I'm going to talk a bit

about our Challenge and our setup and

our IDE of soling that and I'm also

going to do a live demo uh hopefully

it's going to go as planned but this

things are uh notoriously unpredictable

so let's

see um just a couple of words uh about

myself and my background I'm the

director of news at am media uh I worked

in two local newspapers in Northern

Norway for 11 years I held almost every

role imaginable in those uh those titles

uh and I've also always been interested

in technology and de

development uh and actually at one point

in my life I decided while working in a

newspaper to found a company that um

developed and sold publishing systems to

small newspapers which was ironically

bought by am media before I started

working for am media so that was that

was a fun twist uh since 2023 I've

worked in our Central organization so

not in any newsrooms but um but as um as

part of the central organization

here so yeah uh first of all it's

important for me to um most of you are

probably somewhat familiar with what a

media are but for those who

aren't uh we consist of more than 120

newspapers all over Norway which is

quite a long country as you might have

noticed so basically we have more than a

thousand journalists uh situated all

around the country uh we are more than

700,000 subscribers our uh business

model is primarily uh geared towards

subscriptions wasn't that way before but

we've done a huge am amount of work in

terms of digitalizing our subscriber

base and also we've got more than 2

million daily readers so that's that's

who we are uh if you can see my pointer

now I'm trying to point out where I

started my career in local news media in

a town called

Buddha I noticed a couple of Swedish

names in the chat uh so you probably

heard about the local football team

there Buddha glimp which I'm quite proud

of just needed to get that in there okay

so um our local newspapers and newsrooms

are our core that's the core of a media

that will never change so everything we

do is uh is geared towards solving the

problems that arise locally that's a

really important principle for

us so when we're approaching all these

questions all these uh possibilities all

these challenges that artificial techn

technology and artif artificial

intelligence presents it's very

important for us to remember that we

need to to do it in a way that supports

uh our local news rooms we're not trying

to uh the aim for us is not trying to uh

you know just uh work more effectively

on a news desk providing even more of

the same content uh that uh pretty much

anyone can do generically our goal is to

support um the meeting between humans

our presence in our local societies and

uh and our local identity so that's just

something I wanted to to state before

the

presentation okay so this is a picture I

I like uh very much it's O yanes to the

left here he's a journalist in a small

newspaper that we own in the west of

Norway that's called

Fon his uh on this picture his um

recording a podcast Series where he

interviews a man to the writer called

BNA who's dying he's got a cancer

diagnosis uh B actually died a couple of

weeks ago and olanes has made a quite

touching podcast Series where he

interviews B about his uh perspective

towards life itself I might say um it's

it's a really touching touching series

if any of you speak any Norwegian I

would recommend it but the point about

this picture is I think it's uh you know

it's just uh it's just made his own

podcast studio uh in a cabin and this is

basically what a media is and the AI

technology can never replace this you

can never replace meeting humans uh and

getting them to tell their

stories so that's that's sort of our um

our objective here it's not to replace

this it's to expand upon

this uh as you all know uh we've got the

global challenge going at the moment in

terms of uh Rising costs uh inflation

and in Norway that's quite

brutal uh most media most Publishers and

most

newsrooms uh are going to have to make

to with less people than they did just a

year or two ago because of the global

economy and the

and the things arising the problems

arising from that so that's a problem we

need to solve we need to serve our

readers and our users with less

resources than we did before and they

kind of expect more in return because uh

they measure us against Global uh

entertainment providers or other

providers of um of

content and obviously this uh this is

quite the conundrum so the question we

tried to to answer or start answering

with our AI sandbox is how can we help

oanes here to extract even more from

meeting people like

P so that's one part of the equation

we're trying to solve with the AI

sandbox the other part and perhaps one

of the biggest challenges when we as a

media industry face the opportunities

presented by AI is

trust because I'm of um the opinion that

trust is one of the most valuable things

uh that we have

in um in um the global news industry and

obviously this trust as you can see on

these slides uh might be you can say

challenged by the opportunities that AI

provides this is a small newspaper in

Norway that uh probably have discovered

mid Journey or gencraft or image

generator of sorts and uh started

illustrating their articles uh primarily

using that

I would not Advocate that I don't think

that's um I don't think I don't think

that's the way to sort

of um sort of

uh you know we we need to we need to

never lose sight of the trust Dimension

and if you start doing this I think

there's a danger that uh we just uh more

of the same kind of content stream

that's going to pop out uh pop up in um

more frequent variety that we have seen

lately because of AI possibilities and

also you know generating photo realistic

is images I would not recommend doing

that but some local newspapers in Norway

have tried to do that um I'm not really

sure about the results so this is

definitely not what we're trying to

solve with our a

box uh trust as I mentioned is one of

our primary Commodities and to help our

newspapers uh exploit AI in an

Innovative but responsible way we've

established some guidelines uh for them

that will help their the editors uh

determine how they approach AI basically

these are not strict rules every editor

must determine their own rules but I

think they need some guidance and we

tried to provide that for instance we

don't recommend using photo realistic AI

generated images to illustrate our

articles that's just one one example

obviously we don't Advocate uh putting

sensitive information into third party

services and so forth so the trust

Dimension is important for us to sort of

solve when we're trying to do this and

also if you look around yourself in in

the world today there's a bigger picture

uh as I mentioned we're quite heavily

geared towards subscription Revenue uh

we want to protect our content uh from

uh being used to training

big llms large language

models uh if our content is going to be

used to train llms we want to know how

it's going to be used and we want to

control it so that's uh a principle that

we try to apply when when making our own

AI sandbox and basically we want the

freedom to be able to experiment with

editorial use of AI in a safe

environment which you really can't do if

you just uh publish or feed unpublished

articles into chat gp4

um so that's another part of the problem

we tried to to

answer um in Amia we have actually

explored AI for quite a few years uh

since 2018 we we had our own dedicated

team of AI Specialists that supports all

our lines of business um so it's not

entirely new ground uh but we have

focused our efforts towards other things

than um than sort of the products or the

improvements that uh that meet the

readers and users and our journalists

we've we have trained a lot of language

models that helps us analyze and

understand our editorial content we've

done a lot with personalization

obviously we got a huge amount of data

since we have so many subscribers which

we have good and structured data about

and also we used it for simple tools

like converting audio to text and and

such um one of the big projects which we

want to exploit more the coming years is

how we can use our AI plat platform and

our structured content data um and how

that might be able to power up our uh

publishing system because obviously if

you can integrate uh AI tools directly

uh into the workspaces of our

journalists then that's very interesting

and this sandbox is kind of the first

step towards that but not quite I'll

show you the difference in the demo

okay so that's the background and the

reason why we want to do this um I think

this is where I try to go live uh with

my demo so that's another nerve-wracking

moment just a couple of seconds and I'll

try

to

uh uh

okay sorry I need to hide a couple of

panels here um can you see my screen

Cecilia yes I

can yeah perfect it's good okay so this

is basically the interface of our AI

sandbox when uh every one of our more

than a thousand journalists uh go into

this sandbox they they're met with this

interface and sort of the idea here is

twofold for one we want to control the

content that we put into it we don't

want it to be used or abused and the

second part of it which which is kind of

the coolest thing is um we're using what

we call our journalistic hive mind in am

media as I said we're more than a

thousand journalists situated around the

whole country of Norway and what we do

when when these journalists use this

sandbox is we're logging their use and

we're getting IDs for product

improvements Direct IR ly from the use

cases that they prompt into our models

so just to give you give you an example

if um if a large part of the use is um

making U or if um if someone uses this

to summarize articles then obviously we

can make functionality that does exactly

that which we've done here if uh another

use case is uh writing better headlines

then obviously we can Implement that or

develop that capacity and so we want the

organic use of our journalists to be our

guideline when we develop their

workspace basically and I'll show you a

couple of things which we've already

implemented and this is uh this is a

Sandbox that is a living thing I'm

pretty sure there are developers right

now doing something under the hood there

so I'm I'm hoping this uh beta version

is is cooperating with me so first I

just wanted to give you a C of ideas of

how this would this will help our

journalists in their their um their work

uh for instance a typical task for a

local journalist in Norway is keeping

track of all the these uh municipality

meetings or Council meetings or planning

meetings uh I just went and brought a

report from my hometown of Buddha here

which I found on the web page and I'm

going to do this demo in English

obviously because language is is not a

barrier here so here I've just uploaded

the PDF with uh with information about

the meeting that's going to be held and

obviously you can do simple things like

uh prompting that you're a journalist

and you want a summarized version of

this for instance if you you can't be

bothered reading through the

documents

and obviously the better the prompt as

you probably know the more concise the

output

is so let's see if the sbox corporates

here yeah so here I got a couple of

buildings the city of Buddha has receiv

received an application from nor gra

this is which is a travel traveling

agency for co-financing of marketing for

a direct route between Buddha and

Helsinki and I can read that fer has

decided to do a direct route between

Buddha and Helsinki which is obviously

an interesting story for me to write

about is local journalist

Sima

um so I want to uh speed up the work a

bit and obviously you need the prompts

to be precise which is a large part of

implementing the sandbox now um and

helping our journalists use this eff

efficiently of course we use quite a lot

of time uh

training

so let's see what what we come up with

here okay that's that's fine and also I

can read a quote from the mayor which is

fine which I'm quite sure the AI have

invented because budha does have a

different different mayor now so just

just a a case in point when it comes to

fact

checking what you're going to do but

okay uh

could I want the more Tablo headline I

don't think that's that will cut

it okay I like the last one there

and I don't want the quotes from the

mayor okay so now basically in my

mind uh I've got what I might call a

base for an article not a finished

article it's not fact checked I not

spoken to anyone but with a couple of

minutes of work and prompting I

basically uh I done a lot of generic and

uh frankly quite unnecessary work so

using this you can then expand upon this

you could for

example ask the sandbox which sources

you would

use

and I'm pretty sure you get decent

responses what's interesting for those

of you who are watching this and think

oh this this is cool but I can't do this

with my local newspaper well you kind of

can I don't think it's it's really that

difficult uh basically this uses chat

GPT Force engine and we've just built an

interface for it uh what I would say is

I would not recommend uh feeding uh

information unpublished information

sensitive information into chat GPT

directly I would definitely recommend

putting it in a safe environment which

would not be a huge body of work to get

done but basically by just uh just a

couple of easy prompts I've got the base

for an article and I got a list of quite

good uh sources which I could interview

about this so that's just one example uh

of how you can use this as a journalist

to become a bit more efficient and to to

save a bit of time um I wanted to do

another example just

quickly so yeah uh let's imagine that

I'm a journalist still in my hometown of

Buddha that's uh that just started work

uh

and and my editor has told me that

you're going to do a follow-up story on

this story which um which is about

schools that are going to be to be uh uh

to be close because of economical

reasons basically I don't know anything

about the story beforehand I just

started working today so what do I do

well I can uh save a bit of time by

using the AI sandbox to summarize

this and as always I try to

be as concise as

possible

okay looks quite good quite easy to get

a handle on what this is

about

you and as you can see uh still I just

used basically I've only used the chat

function which is to say most of this

you can do using just the chat functions

from uh large language

models uh and as I said it's probably

not a big development work just to get

that in a safe environment uh we also

got some more advanced uh Advanced

functionality here we have the ability

to uh to to tr to get audio from text

here using different voices this is also

not technology we've developed ourselves

it is a provider that we just uh made

available in the user interface but it's

in the same controlled environment so

that's one option we've got and we

obviously got stuff like uh headline

proposals and and and really quite basic

quite basic functional functionality at

the time being but uh if I go back to my

presentation uh there are some

opportunities that open up when our

journalists start using this these tools

and starts getting familiar with the

opportunities that they provide

wide so we've launched an editorial AI

Hub uh which have a couple of initiative

leads that work in our Central

organization the intention of this AI

Hub is to connect basically our

newsrooms uh the journalists out there

which of which eight are participating

in this Hub project with our development

resources and our AI team and our

editorial development team so basically

uh they will try to be ambassadors they

will try to learn how we can use these

tools in a most Innovative way and we'll

try to let that also influence the way

we product developed so this is how it

works we put something into our AI

router uh which uh obviously

communicates with open AR or Google or

any other third party and we get

output we log the data so we know what

our journalists use this

for we can give feedback towards the

output thanks to our AI team and then

basically over time we can build our own

am media GPT which knows am media's

content which knows uh what constitutes

a good headline and a less good headline

which knows what journalists really mean

when they type different prompts into

the interface so that is sort of um sort

of the

ID which we just started down the rout

of

uh but of course even in a safe

environment even in a sandbox there are

dos and don'ts so what we tell our

journalists in addition to giving the

editors some guidance on establishing

their own guidelines we obviously tell

everyone to use the sandbox don't be

afraid to use it you can't do anything

really wrong as long as you don't I

don't know feed your personal health uh

information or something into the tools

um and we need to get them to start

start asking the question can this

sandbox help me with this so uh that's

probably the biggest uh the biggest uh

body of work it's getting enough people

uh interested in and getting them to

understand the possibilities that these

tools give

you uh obviously you need to fact check

before publishing which by the way goes

for uh not just gen AI

created content but pretty much every

content but it's uh it's even more

important now obviously and also there's

no don't there's a couple of don'ts

which uh you can pretty much um if

you're if you're sensible about it you

can pretty much uh deduce this

yourselves but it's it's nice to be

explicit about

it uh and obviously there's an

opportunities opportunity to give

feedback directly to the sandbox as

well um so if I Tred to summarize why

did we make it well uh it gives us

flexibility in terms of which third

party AI tools we want to use in a safe

environment it ensures data

security uh it's cost efficient and we

have control over the costs we don't

distribute the decisions about which AI

tools I want to buy or plug into our

systems uh into 100 news

rooms and of course we gain knowledge of

our business needs and the potential use

cases through the use patterns we see

also this is a chance for our

journalists to yes as I said guide the

direction of our product development

which I think is maybe the most exciting

thing about all this and it's also a way

to ensure that we spread expertise uh

and um the ability to use AI tools

efficiently as a journalist to us an

editor throughout our

organization

and we have had a couple of workshops

with the AI Hub these are just a couple

of things that we want to implement into

the AI sendbox quite uh quite quickly uh

using uh the feedback that they have

given us so for instance the

brainstormer which is basically a more

efficient way of uh asking for IDs fact

checking obviously is going to be

important Auto writer is something that

we're working on at the moment basically

uh for instance if if a journalists uh

in a local newspaper this happens quite

frequently uh in our

newspapers if someone wanted to do a

story about the weather then they might

check uh the weather forecast and they

start write up writing up a story the

auto writer can do this for you you can

call the meteorologists or something and

get get a quote instead and be more

efficient talk to

people um and obviously different um

different kinds of

functionalities this is just a result of

one workshop and the initial feedback

we've got gotten from journalists and

this is going to expand quite quickly um

at the moment this is a Sandbox which is

a stand loone product it's not

incorporated into our CMS but obviously

uh that is the end goal we want to incor

incorporate this this into the workflow

of every journalist but just to

reiterate it you don't need a host of

developers you don't need a huge Central

organization you don't need to plug this

into your CMS what what you can do is

hire a developer and let them spend 10

or 15 hours to set up this safe

environment for you um the main body of

work um with our a andbox has basically

been done in about a month with one or

two people involved so it's not a lot of

work it's not Out Of Reach for even

really small

Publishers and obviously our our wish

here is to create a set of tools that

helps our journalists become better in

their jobs and enables time uh spent

meeting real people and writing real

stories so that's basically the Crux of

it uh I'm afraid I did the the live demo

a bit early in the presentation but I

think it works um pretty much worked

either way don't you think

Cecilia absolutely that was brilliant

very seamless I have to

say um thank you so much Marcus um I'm

going to let we have we got a question

we need to make sure we have enough time

for questions we have a question from

Saka ludik uh she said during the demo

she said it looks like there's a

limitation of use for your reporters the

interface says something with usage of

tokens she's wondering what this is

about yeah it's basically it's basically

functionality that exists in every large

language model because it it's so

resource demanding but you don't see it

in the interface of chat GPT because so

basically what it means is um in every

context window you have a limited amount

of

memory in the language model so for

instance if I were to chat for two more

hours about the story I chatted

about earlier then I would use up sort

of the the context memory of that

particular um instance but what what we

basically do is refresh the window and

start over again

without the earlier context so it's not

a limit and it's very cost efficient it

doesn't cost us a lot at all so that's

that's just the way the large language

models Works uh chat jpt does this but

you don't see it in the interface so

perhaps we should hide it

that's and and uh I think we saw three

different large language models there um

why have you done that and what is the

learning so far well it's only been a

week

but yeah but obviously the the use cases

are quite extensional already so we have

learned a lot already just during the

first week but but basically the idea is

to we don't want to limit uh the access

to different types of language models or

AI tools we want uh to experiment with

which ones perform the best and which

ones uh are the most intuitive for our

journalists and the early findings is

that chat GPT 4 is by far the most

popular and

better one so far

so G is not not that no and they ran

into trouble didn't they yeah yeah yeah

they did and

[Music]

um a question about fact Checkers yeah

sorry how does check fact Checker

works yeah so basically we have um this

is um this is a system deviced from our

AI team the reason why why large

language models hallucinate is because

they predict uh but they can only

predict uh based on the context that you

give them so basically if you if you

Anchor

Information then you can use llm to fact

check for you I don't remember the

technical term it's a different type of

model but basically you instead of uh

asking the training material of chat GPT

who's the president of the United States

you anchor uh a verified place of

information for instance Wikipedia if

you trust that or another encyclopedia

and then you go there

directly that's one way of doing it

right uh I have I have a quite a

different question but I'm quite

interested in knowing are you

communicating this to and do you think

it's necessary because it's not actually

you're not autop publishing anything but

are you communicating to your readers

about the fact that AI is involved in

your journalism now somehow and how do

you do that absolutely so this is um

basically the way am media works is this

is every editor's uh own privilege to to

to decide how you want to do this but we

we've established some guidelines as I

showed you and in those guidelines we

for instance recommend uh that whenever

you've used AI tools you should probably

explicitly tell the reader about it so

for instance this tic this article

summary has been produced with the help

of AI tools or right a text yes that

sort yeah absolutely but definitely it's

it's that's a really important part of

the the trust Dimension I think to be

open where

and um we have a question from um Dean

uh every editor and journalist has exper

access to this right there is no limit

who can use it no that's

right

[Music]

um

the kind of the problem you know every

editor and has access to chat GPT as

well and we don't want them to use them

use it without

thinking yeah but they don't have to use

it yeah do they have to use it um

interesting question I know where very

good question uh I know shipstad for

instance some of their newspapers have

implemented this it as a demand that you

have to use AI tools just to get used we

have not done that yet we won't to

inspire people to use

it but I'm I don't think you can

really you you you you do not have the

choice of not U trying out some of these

possibilities as a journalist I don't

think you can I just don't think it's

viable no I think you're right in this

day and age

nichas you have any

questions yeah so you had it out for

some for a short time it's quite kind of

new right so so what are the First

Reactions like personal that you can

tell

us finally it's the most common reaction

um and obviously that reaction comes

from those people who have probably

tested a lot of AI tools outside of our

digital ecosystem before um but but also

we oh there have been so many questions

there there have been questions about

guidelines um there have been

journalists contacting us wondering

whether you should use this for

illustrating historical podcast pieces

uh there's been a lot of questions um

and in terms of use patterns U basically

the most the most used use case so far

seems to be chatting with your headlines

to try to improve them which I think is

quite clever from our yeah our editors

yeah

absolutely all right we're uh we're

running it's very popular we probably

could talk for a long time about this

but uh we'll we'll come back to this um

topic again I'm sure um I'm going to

share my screen

again

um so um this as I said this webinar

will be available to watch On Demand uh

on the innovate Local website uh and

we'll send out an email with that link

um there will also be a write up and

we'll have some other resources

available um if you have question any

questions about innovate local uh

suggestions for cases or maybe you have

a case that you would like to present um

please get in touch with me on nichlas

um and our next webinar is in two weeks

on March 20th and we'll feature an

exciting case from tamedia in

Switzerland the topic will be audience

development and we'll hear how Tamia

offers hyper local newsletters to

communities with as few as 5,000

inhabitants and through smart data

collection um the time to produce these

newsletters have gone from several hours

to 20 minutes uh and the newsletters now

have a reach of 20 to 40% after just one

year of of

operation and the job is to drive

Tamia's top of subscription funnel so um

now I realize audience development might

not be your main topic of interest but

it will be no doubt be very interesting

to one of or two of your colleagues so

we really recommend that you spread the

word in your companies about innovate

local um to people to come and register

and then to get on that all important um

mailing list to get the link to the

webinar every Monday and you can choose

whether you join or not so let everybody

know uh that concludes uh this innovate

local webinar thank you so much Marcus

for sharing your sites and doing a live

demo that was very brave um and thank

you for supporting our program we really

appreciate it uh and thanks everyone for

joining us today we hope to see you here

again soon for another Wednesday webinar

goodbye goodbye thank you Marcus goodbye

everyone