Artificial intelligence – and especially generative AI – were both a threat and an opportunity for the five media chief executives who joined a panel at last week’s INMA World Congress of News Media.

In a session moderated by INMA’s product initiative lead session Jodie Hopperton, topics included the distinction between journalism and content, maintaining the reader’s trust, and ways to strengthen relationships with Gen Z.

Stuff New Zealand chief Sinead Boucher saw “so many potential positives” including in efficiency through automation and enhancing the work of the newsroom. “But it’s going to take a lot of focus and effort to ensure things go right.

“Right now we’ve got the kind of implementations many others have. For instance, using AI to start layouts and do summaries.”

Chief of Belgium-headquartered Mediahuis Gert Ysebaert said that while wanting to embrace AI and its potential for efficiency, “we also realise that the landscape will change drastically, so we also need to just mitigate risk”.

The key was to augment journalism, not replace it, and to be transparent to readers when using it for things like summaries. “It’s about trust and keeping the human in the loop. The editor-in-chief is still the one who is responsible for what is published.”

Mediahuis had made a framework for its newsroom for using AI in an ethical way. “We developed a document with seven simple principles to act as a manual.

“Our editors-in-chief like it a lot. They made it themselves and they really needed it. So much is coming at us so quickly. We need to make priorities and we need to do it in a controlled way.”

Boucher agreed “we would be deluding ourselves if we don’t realise it will be a hugely disruptive force.

“Right now, I’m looking at how we reacted slowly and with complacency to social and to search and thinking about lessons that can be learned. A lot of us are still grappling with the legacy of those disruptive changes in terms of our relationships with Big Tech companies and with regulations and payments. And now we are at another hugely disruptive moment. We need to focus on what we need to protect and how are we going to compete.”

Would India have the same opportunity as it had as one of the first countries to be was truly mobile-first?

Managing director and chief executive of HT Media Group Praveen Someshwar said AI brought a massive opportunity. “But the watch-out is that our job is still to get through to our audiences in the best possible manner and to amplify our content so they can get to the truth.

“Generative AI is going to change the way content gets amplified and it’s going to change the way audiences consume it. So it’s both an opportunity and a threat.

“The threat is that it is getting trained from the content we and others create, and we creators may not be rewarded in a balanced manner. If publishers and Big Tech can work together, there is a massive opportunity for both. But Big Tech has to share the spoils.

Ysebaert’s view was that “the real opportunity for Mediahuis was that they were not in the content business, but in the journalism business: “In a world where there will be so much content made by AI, people will look for what the human view is, for the human touch, and I think they will continue to value that,” he said.

Publishers could differentiate themselves with trust: “People will be willing to pay if they are engaged and if they trust us,” he said. “But if people don’t understand journalism well enough, we have to explain better. If we want to make a difference, we have to explain what we are doing.”

That summary won praise from Someshwar: “The anchor is trust, and there are really two ways to think of content, and I do use the word instead of journalism. Content can be monetised by either subscriptions or advertising.

“When people have trust in you at the highest level, they are happy to pay for a subscription. Without trust, you have to lean more on advertising. As trust comes down, you need advertising more.”

To Hopperton’s question about distinguishing a product, Bocher emphasised the need to be trustworthy, “but the audience research shows that the things that we probably equate with trust aren’t necessarily what the consumer associates with trust.

“We think about things like transparency of sources, but when you survey consumers, they say they trust platforms that ‘respect my time’. So we also need to understand their needs to gain their trust.”

Would “some kind of certification for journalists” to distinguish them from influencers help with trust, Hopperton asked.

Though not sure about external certification Ysebaert agreed readers, especially younger generations, expect much more transparency. “And I think that can come from publishers being clear about our standards and stating our key principles and being transparent about how we organise ourselves internally. Let's start by doing that.”

Infoglobo Brazil chief Frederic Kachar said that while the idea of certifying journalists was the subject of a big discussion in Brazil, “we, as a group, were against this.

“Our flagship publication is about to complete 98 years of existence, and we built our brand and our audience at a time when a certification to work in a newsroom was actually required in Brazil. But now we think that having a diversity of authors is what should define us rather than a certification.

“If you have everyone from different perspectives and levels of society – including doctors and scientists – sharing the same values and standards, then that’s what gives you trust and good journalism.”

Asking how to organise C-suite to optimise how to generate revenue, Hopperton learned the digital revolution had exploded silos. “Now have a C-suite that works together with everyone on a shared mission,” said Kachar. “Without a shared mission, we won’t succeed.”

Chief executive of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong Catherine So agreed. “Everyone needs to be on board with the mission, and to us, we have two roles: to be the newspaper of record of Hong Kong and to lead the conversation on China.

“You also need to have mutual respect. The business side doesn’t always work seamlessly with editorial. But if you hire people who respect each other you will get a team that works together seamlessly.”

On the role of trust in revenue, So said SCMP had thought long and hard before the launch of its paywall, with limited subscription potential because of Hong Kong’s small market.

“But we have been the most trusted paper for generations, so we are looking on how to build on that trust to expand our revenue.

“We have a very powerful community of people engage with us in education, and because we have that trust in our brand, we can think creatively about building our education business. We're able to do a lot more things beyond just content, right? We host story events and leadership conferences.”

With thanks to INMA/Sarah Schmidt

Pictured (from left): Jodie Hopperton, Sinead Boucher, Frederic Kachar, Catherine So, Praveen Someshwar, and Gert Ysebaert