Generative AI continues to evolve and adapt at a rapid rate of knots. How do newsrooms keep up? What news challenges are on the horizon? Will new opportunities arise? These questions and more answered below.
Justine Roberts, founder, Mumsnet: AI companies will come to their senses and compensate creators (but we must keep up the pressure)
Mousetrap Media / Frank Noon
This year has seen numerous publishers (including my own website, Mumsnet) take action against AI developers for scraping content in breach of copyright. But as the world wakes up to the existential threat that this kind of theft poses for creators, I hope 2025 will see proper enforcement of copyright law leading to a mutually beneficial licensing market for the use of creative content in building generative AI. Not just because ensuring creators are properly compensated for their content is the right thing to do, but for future growth in the generative AI sector, which is reliant on a sustainable supply of high-quality, human-authored copyright works, without which it risks collapse.
There is more than enough money flooding into AI companies for everyone to be fairly and sustainably rewarded for their contribution. In 2025, I think the government has to step up and ensure that billion-dollar companies cannot waltz untrammelled over any notion of fair value exchange in the name of rapid "development". We can collaborate for a future where innovation and fairness coexist.
Ramaa Sharma, digital and AI media consultant, executive coach and speaker on the Oxford Reuters Institute Leadership Programmes: Prepare for the AI reckoning and revolution
In 2025, AI will reshape journalism — transforming how stories are told, facts are verified, and audiences are engaged. Yet the industry will face a reckoning. As AI literacy spreads and new tools emerge, so will the challenges of missing or biased datasets and the complexities of building ethical systems.
Cybersecurity will become critical. Newsrooms will contend with more AI-driven disinformation, deep fakes, and targeted cyberattacks, as well as an increase in AI-enabled scams affecting the public. In response, leaders must invest in cybersecurity expertise, adopt more sophisticated safeguards, and create new roles capable of meeting these challenges.
Lesley-Anne Kelly, head of data journalism, DC Thomson: AI strengthens local democracy (if used right)
News is obviously very important but we should also provide a service for our readers. What problems do our audiences have and what can we do to solve them? What tools can we provide to make their lives easier?
In an age of news avoidance, we need to try different routes to making connections with readers and increasing trust.
We also know that AI is here to stay and I hope that the publishers that succeed with it are the ones who target AI usage to make their reporters' lives easier. Rather than using AI to create content or for the creative side of the business (which has an inherent risk of eroding trust), harness it for menial tasks which then frees up reporters to create unique and valuable content for our audiences.
I also expect we will see an increase in the use of large language models to parse and analyse large volumes of unstructured data that would otherwise take a team of people weeks or months to achieve. With the increase in development around AI and the production of packages developed within environments that data journalists are familiar with such as R and Python I expect to see this usage become something we could see within smaller newsrooms that do not have the resources of the FT or the Guardian.
This opens up the option for smaller and local publishers to interrogate and shine a light upon data that might otherwise be overlooked which could be game-changing for reporting on local democracy.
David Caswell, founder, StoryFlow: AI-powered newsgathering is the next big hit
Two years after the launch of ChatGPT, most newsrooms are engaged in some kind of AI-driven experimentation. For many, this might be the automation of tedious tasks like copy editing, search engine optimisation or tagging. For others, it might be drafting new forms of content, such as summaries, newsletters or even audio scripts.
For the more ambitious it may be the creation of an "AI toolkit" or of chatbots that interact with archives. For news organisations at the leading edge of AI, however, a new kind of application is emerging – the automation of newsgathering at an unprecedented scale using AI to read, synthesise and summarise large volumes of source material.
AI-powered newsgathering often begins with summarising a few PDFs, analysing a dataset or translating a document using a language model. It soon becomes apparent, however, that there are few limits to AI’s ability to digest source material or to find promising stories within it. Reuters, for example, have begun using AI to find stories in thousands of press releases, and the Associated Press has sponsored a system that reads thousands of police reports for a metro newspaper.
Some publishers are building systems that monitor social media accounts, government websites and financial reporting for promising stories, while several start-ups offer AI-powered ‘research’ tools. Even Google is testing an AI newsroom tool with newsgathering capabilities. In 2025 more publishers will use AI to expand the subjects they cover and the detail in which they cover them. We might all become far more informed as a result.
Niketa Patel, senior director, leadership programs at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism: top newsrooms find clarity in uses of AI
Going into 2025, I predict that newsrooms will come to realise that they should prioritise AI responsibly and innovatively, alongside quality journalism, sustainability and audience needs.
As an industry, we should not run towards shiny AI tools, stunts and hollow deals. Instead, we should strive for excellence in journalism, hold tech companies to account through mutually beneficial partnerships and truly try to understand our audiences.
Much like the internet and social media, AI is not going to save us. However, creative and bold uses of AI will give our industry an edge, provided we centre our work in transparency using our ethical compasses as our North Star. Outsourcing mundane tasks to AI could lead to more productivity and profitability.
Some key factors for elevating journalism while leveraging AI should include us as the humans in the loop, recognising the possibilities and limitations of AI when it comes to nuanced reporting, data analysis and fact-checking for example.
Given the recent news about Google launching an AI agent, I would personally love to see the first newsroom-powered AI agent next year.
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