10 things I have learnt about AI and journalism in 2020

It has been a year since we published the results of our global survey on what news organisations are doing with and thinking about AI technologies. Augmentation: Most use cases were designed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the work of human journalists, not to replace them. AI-powered technologies were used to connect content better to the public, rather than to replicate the editorial process. Knowledge gap: There was a shortage of people skilled in AI technologies and, just as important, a lack of knowledge across news organisations about the potential and pitfalls of those technologies. Strategy: In a fast-moving, highly-pressurised industry, there was a lack of strategic thinking about a set of technologies that can have a systemic impact on all aspects of journalism. I don't think the report missed much or got things wrong, but since then we've had a year of intense and wide-ranging research and activities with journalists using AI around the world.