The business accelerator, Innsomnia Business Accelerator, organized this Wednesday the first day of the ‘I Spanish-American Forum on AI Applied to Journalism‘, a high-level event that will bring together technology leaders, startups and senior officials from around the world for two days … major national and international media at its headquarters in La Marina de Valencia.
During this first day, the importance of innovation was discussed in a constantly evolving sector which, today, with the brilliant emergence of artificial intelligence, faces significant challenges for the future.
As Rafael Navarro, co-founder and CEO of Innsomnia Business Accelerator, explained, “We want this to become focus on digitalization of the media, in the inevitable transformation of production processes and economic models of the press, as in the rest of the sectors.
Navarro stressed that “we would like this to be only a first edition and that we can repeat this reflection every year so that the sector becomes aware of it and that the EU and the different Spanish administrations support the transformation of journalism with aid”.
For this reason, Navarro concluded, “it is so important that journalists support those responsible for innovation and digitalization in their work. And that together you involve the management and the rest of the departments of your companies, whether public or private. Because your future depends on it.”
The inaugural presentation was given by the EFE Agency. Its president, Miguel Ángel Oliver, and its director of Technology and Systems, Juanma Ruiz, reflected on the paradigm shift in journalism and its ethical implications. “The journalist must do what he has always done and what he must do with a new life”Oliver said.
Ruiz discussed some of the AI applications already in use in the agency, such as a virtual assistant with the history file or a bank of test prompts for journalists, to name just a few examples.
Since that moment, there have been debates and spaces for reflection. Thus, Carlos Caneiro, deputy director of ABC; David Corral, innovation expert and head of international relations and cooperation at RTVE; and Daniel Muñoz, Director of Digital Strategy, AI, Product and Data at EL ESPAÑOL, explained their respective media’s experiences regarding the application of artificial intelligence.
Corral, who put on the table the “fear” that AI arouses in companies, defended the usefulness of AI in a public media in services such as content search, vocal generation of information with territorial accents or content personalization; Muñoz admitted that, now, “the sector is full of threats, but also opportunities without the business model improving substantially” and provided examples of how AI helps publishers find links or improve spelling; and Caneiro, finally, was optimistic about the future – “journalism must regain its credibility thanks to AI”, he said – and presented use cases in ABC such as CMS assistant for SEO, title or image proposals.
Related to the above, one of the world’s leading technology companies, Microsoft, also contributed its vision during the first day. David Hurtado, Head of Innovation at Microsoft Spain, detailed the North American company’s projects and plans for the media sector.
Hurtado stressed the importance of using AI in favor of productivity, defended that “we have never seen a technology evolve so quickly” and recognized that “I cannot think of a process in the media where AI cannot act today.” Likewise, he predicted that “This will cause style changes”. Tools like “Copilot” are used for journalism.
Two large communications groups such as Grupo Godó and PRISA also brought their particular vision. Specifically, Pere Català, Director of Digital Transformation and Artificial Intelligence at Godó Group, and Gonzalo Teubal, Director of AI Governance at PRISA, did so.
Català once again raised the debate on the possibilities that AI offers to mitigate fake news and the difficulty of linking AI to business improvement. Teubal stressed the need for media outlets to establish conditions for the use of AI for their editors.
The presentation of the Xalok Assistant tool, developed by Hiberus Media Labs, specially designed for the media sector, which Belén Jódar and David Sancha were responsible for presenting, also aroused great interest.
Jódar and Sancha explained that the company is present in 32 countries and has developed this tool to help journalists and media editors improve and adapt content according to their needs and according to the objectives in relation to the audience. AI plays a central role in the functions associated with this tool. And all this “with respect for the flow of the writing”.
Challenges and opportunities
Like any good day of debate, it was also time to address the challenges and threats posed by AI for the media sector. Although this topic was discussed in various presentations, it was addressed in particular detail by Carlos Lauría, executive director of the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA).
Lauria clarified that “AI is a tsunami, because it produces and interprets.” Regarding threats, he alluded to the fact that “the capacity to generate false content is unlimited and if we do not act quickly, the information gap will widen.” In terms of opportunities, scaling solutions, research and analysis are key. He called for a global agreement in the sector to ensure ethics in the use of AI.
For their part, Manuel Ángel Méndez, editor-in-chief of Teknautas and member of the AI Committee of El Confidencial, and David Guardado, product manager at the Editorial Projects Office of Prensa Ibérica, and Rubén Guirado, head of data science at Unidad Editorial, were responsible for explaining how give value to the company to artificial intelligence in the media.
Guardado made the comparison with mobility. “Prensa Ibérica does not have an autonomous vehicle, it has assistants. The pilot is the journalist”, he explained before highlighting the adaptation of strategies so that each manager of the group can use AI flexibly according to their needs. Méndez explained how at El Confidencial they use AI to detect events such as traffic drops, subscription conversion rates or interactions with users, among others. Finally, Guirado revealed that Unidad Editorial has been using AI for years and is now using AI generative, for example, as a market tool.
The main attraction of Wednesday afternoon’s session was a workshop in which the multinational Microsoft explained with demonstrations the main AI tools applicable to the journalism sector.
But first there was also room for three interesting presentations. Paola Bruni, general editor of Infobae Spain, addressed the new journalistic scenarios after this AI revolution and explained how this media has up to 50 assistants with different functions, such as creating impactful content with journalistic criteria.
Carlos Ardila, commercial director of Protecmedia, highlighted the vocation of AI as an assistant to journalists. His presentation focused on the change in obtaining information, its interpretation and dissemination and how technology has evolved and accompanied the journalist. The new frontier is that of AI agents, capable, according to Ardila, of carrying out specific tasks within the profession.
Finally, Tomás Dodds, director of the Public Tech Media Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wanted to introduce the concept of “new democratic futures” that will result from the application of AI. In this context, he was very clear: “Quality is better than quantity”.
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