Axel Springer goes all-in on AI

Axel Springer’s reported bid for the Telegraph Media Group could accelerate the use of generative AI in the UK’s newsrooms. 

Why generative AI matters

“Our goal is to become an AI-first company,” Samir Fadlallah, chief information officer at Axel Springer, said at the recent DMEXCO conference. As the German publisher goes all-in on AI, one can assume that any new titles it acquires will also be transformed by the tech. 

Three challenges

• Content creation and consumption. Generative AI will change how people consume content and how publishers create it, Fadlallah noted. Axel Springer is embracing the technology from both directions – using chatbots to combine news websites with generative AI-prompt engineering done by journalists, and applying the tech in newsrooms to optimise headlines, create keywords and metadata, and shorten text for social media distribution. It’s also using it in the advertising space, where it is seen as supplying a contextual targeting solution to the problems caused by the death of cookies. 
• Fake news. It’s easier than ever to create fake news using GenAI, which is itself prone to “hallucinations”. Add in deepfake video tech and the risks to society are clear. “We need to emphasise even more that we are the trusted source of news,” said Fadlallah. “We are responsible for everything we put out there.”
• The copyright issue. Regulation will come but that will take time. The chief information officer highlighted the fact that already the quality of large language models is going down as they scrape everything on the internet, including fake news and hate speech. “We’re really open to talk to these providers and provide our high quality content to them,” he said. 

Key quote

“We want to shape the future when it comes to consumption and also to content creation. We don’t want to lose the relationship to our readers. Generative AI is neither saviour nor nemesis, but will be an ally and a valued friend” – Samir Fadlallah, chief information officer at Axel Springer.

BEC