Despite the alarming headlines and the breathtakingly rapid development of AI models, many publishers are approaching AI in an even-handed and mature way, mindful of the threats but determined to take advantage of the opportunities.
In the upcoming September / October issue of InPublishing (not on the free mailing list? Register here), we are running our fourth AI special, looking at how publishers are using AI in practice, which will be followed by a Q&A webinar with the participants in November – more details to follow.
I’ve been editing the pieces over the last few weeks and there’s lots of excellent insight and advice, which I hope you will find instructive.
For now, a little preview; I thought I would pick out few of the many takeaways on offer:
- Don’t just set out to “do AI”. Set out to solve a problem.
- Fix your data. AI tools sitting on top of dodgy data will provide dodgy answers, albeit with great aplomb.
- Be honest and transparent about your use of AI – never try to hoodwink your readers.
- Make sure you can show the provenance of all your content. Who created it; when it was created; who / what edited it and when. Full audit trails are needed.
- Humans should be in control. So called “publishers” who spew out slop with no human oversight give us all a bad name. What separates good publishers from, err, less good ones, is humans.
- Experimentation is important, but don’t lose sight of the need to implement and demonstrate RoI.
We will be finalising the mailing list for the September / October issue over the next few days. In addition to the AI special, there are interviews with Mail Metro Media’s Claudine Collins, Prima Editor-in-Chief Jo Checkley, Goalhanger’s Emily Kent Smith and veteran environment correspondent Geoffrey Lean; 67 Bricks’ Jerome Jones tells us how to unleash the power of your data, ‘Digital Horizons’ is written by Reach's Terry Hornsby and this issue’s ‘Industry Voice’ is ABC's Simon Redlich. Also, we have John Barnes on harnessing the potential of vibe coding, Berkok Yüksel on getting more value from your newsletters, Alan Geere on the existential threat to science writing, Dickon Ross on the likely impact of AI on media jobs and Jim Bilton on the inner workings of the media world.
If you’re not already on our free mailing list, you can register here.
You can catch James Evelegh’s regular column in the InPubWeekly newsletter, which you can register to receive here.
