In 2023, Media Collateral published a report: “Gen AI x Comms: Industry Impact Report.” For the 2024 edition, State of Digital Publishing (SODP) partnered up with Media Collateral to deliver insights to publishing, communications, and PR professionals, as well as journalists and content creators, on the impact of generative AI technologies on the industry.
As part of the research, Andrew Thompson (Research & Editorial Lead at Media Collateral) conducted a series of interviews with industry experts to help place the findings in a larger context and supplement the report with a qualitative analysis.
Binoy Prabhakar is a member of the expert panel for the research study and below is his interview with Andrew Thompson.
Binoy Prabhakar is a journalist of 23 years with a background in print, digital and multimedia. He is presently Chief Content Officer, Hindustan Times Digital, one of India’s largest media publishers, heading a newsroom of 330 journalists. He is an entrepreneurial journalist focused on running agile and efficient newsrooms, building successful journalism products, and finding innovative business solutions.
As a media industry leader, what are the major impacts you see Gen AI having for day to day communications practitioners?
“If AI tools become pervasive, what happens to differentiation?”
AI tools undoubtedly help communications practitioners become more efficient, and possibly effective. Messaging can be sharper, errors can be weeded out, and realms of data can be analyzed to better serve customers and brands.
However, it is still early days, so we have yet to assess potential ramifications. One vital question has yet to be answered: if AI tools become pervasive, what happens to differentiation?
Have you been surprised by the rapid advancement of Gen AI in the media and communications space over the past 12-18 months?
Hardly surprised. After the impact of big tech, media companies keep a close watch on potential disruption due to technology. The convenience spawned by AI tools has driven adoption.
How have you used Gen AI in your and your team’s media and communications roles?
Hindustan Times Digital uses AI in the following cases:
- Automated Story Creation: The newsroom publishes certain kinds of stories with minimal manual intervention, helping to cover more topics and maintain a consistent publishing schedule.
- News Recommendations: AI helps provide insights into user needs and provide story recommendations.
- Spotting Errors and Enhancing Quality: AI helps maintain accuracy and style, as well as improve the quality of stories before publishing.
- Multimedia Content: AI is used to generate multimedia content such as images and videos from textual stories.
- Data-Driven Insights and Analytics: AI tools scour large amounts of data to generate insights and identify trends.
How is your usage evolving? Or how do you see it evolving?
AI is baked into our newsroom operations as you can see from the above use cases. Our approach to AI is based on the premise of improving the efficiency of our journalists.
A journalist who not long ago had to transcribe an hour-long video manually welcomes the faster turnaround time. A video journalist pressed for time welcomes the various thumbnail options offered by AI. The analytics and SEO team welcomes the actionable insights AI coughs up from realms of data quickly and effectively.
But all these actions in the newsroom are underlined by manual interventions and supervision. We see AI as an enabler but are not bewitched by its prowess. We will use AI to be more efficient and better serve our audience, but we recognize journalism is a craft that is uniquely human.
“We see AI as an enabler but are not bewitched by its prowess. We will use AI to be more efficient and better serve our audience, but we recognize journalism is a craft that is uniquely human.”
What are your greatest hopes for how generative AI can benefit you as a media/communications professional, but also the industry as a whole?
Besides continuing to improve the workflow of journalists, I look forward to AI helping understand the needs of readers and brands, deepening that relationship and enhancing the potential of monetisation.
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How can everyday media and communications professionals leverage the opportunities to advance in their roles?
AI is breathlessly changing the media landscape. Media and communication professionals must keep pace with the raft of changes. They have no choice but experiment with AI tools and constantly assess the impact on industry.
What are some of the major risks you see with Gen AI across the media and communications landscape? From job losses, to ethical issues, to authorship and misinformation?
Ethical issues and misinformation come to mind. AI tools are scraping websites and stealing information. The farce of Google AI summaries has shown the dangers of misinformation. Again and again, these incidents underscore the importance of checks and balances.
What is your advice for everyday media practitioners seeking to navigate the risks?
Embrace AI by all means, but be acutely aware of the perils.
Human oversight must be constant at all AI touchpoints. Be in control of AI and let not AI control you.
How do you see Gen AI impacting the way media and communications practitioners work in the next 5 years? Any predictions or future trends you would like to share?
How AI will shape the industry is hard to predict, but AI will doubtless gnaw at creativity and authenticity. Does that mean audiences and brands will crave, even value, output that is uniquely human? One can only hope.
