From the stuff of Hollywood moves, AI has moved to centre stage as newsrooms adopt technologies that enable them to compete more effectively.

The role of artificial intelligence in the “new era” of the news industry is among those to be explored at WAN-Ifra’s Asian Media Leaders Summit event, from May 24-26.

In a report by the group with Germany-based consulting group Schickler in February, more than three-quarters of those surveyed said that AI would be an important part of their success in three years. While 70 per cent of the of 54 publishers surveyed said that they had not fully implemented an AI use case, more than half have already started experimenting.

Slowly but surely, news media organisations are starting to invest in the technology expected to help them become profitable and thrive.

The WAN-Ifra-Schickler report is to be presented in the conference’s ‘AI in the Newsroom’ session, with experiences from media organisations which have implemented AI in their editing process and to increase reader engagement.

As an aside, organisers point to findings that some small publishers around the world have already adopted AI in many facets of their activities, either through in-house development or by partnering with startups, universities and labs.

Among speakers are Chia Lun Huang (transformation and learning director at CommonWealth Magazine, Taiwan), Igor Pipkin (chief data scientist at Amedia, Norway), and WAN-Ifra’s insights director and editor-in-chief Dean Roper.

Registration to the virtual event is free to members and costs SGD690 for non members; details from membership@wan-ifra.org