News automation: The publishers’ treasure trove

February 2026. By Cecilia Campbell

Clarity is everything. At the start of 2026, a lot of things in the local media industry seem clear – if not all good:

1. It’s clear that if you depend on traffic from search and social, pressure is mounting.
2. It’s also clear that democracy across much of the world is under pressure and that the need for strong local journalism is as great as ever.
3. It will have escaped no-one that AI plays a growing role in the news industry generally.

I suggest that we’re at an inflection point of these events. And that it may constitute a real opportunity for local journalism.

Malmö, January 2023

“What do you think of ChatGPT in the context of journalism? Saviour or enemy? Will AI make or break the news industry?” This is certainly the question du jour in our industry. 

“We need to prepare for the death of the article as we know it,” said Nikita Roy at the Nordic AI in Media Summit* in Copenhagen recently. For me this was probably the most strikingly simple, yet clarifying statement made over the course of the two days – speaking, as it does, to a number of implications of the impact of AI on journalism. It’s about tech, but it’s also very much about people – those who produce it and those who consume it.

May 2024. A year and a half has passed since generative AI went mainstream. For United Robots, where we’d already been working in the AI / newsroom space for years when ChatGPT came along, we – I admit – got kind of side-tracked focusing on where our “old AI” tech fit with this new stuff. But then the penny dropped.

Malmö, November 30, 2023 by Cecilia Campbell

April 2023. It’s been a couple of months since we published our first blog on generative AI. And while the discussion in the industry continues unabated, the initial dust is settling somewhat, to reveal a few key aspects which I think should guide the news industry in how we relate to and work with this new tech. 

With the uptake of AI in media – generative AI in particular – the media industry is at the beginning of a new wave of digital transformation with implications for everything from content, to brand, ethics, business and labour practices.  So it’s no surprise that the Nordic AI in Media Summit in Copenhagen recently was a sell-out. After a spring of intense AI discussions, the summit was a chance for some much needed collective stock-taking. 

By Cecilia Campbell