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About 18 months ago, IBJ dedicated an entire issue to exploring artificial intelligence. We called it the AI Issue (perhaps we should have asked Chat GPT to come up with some options for a more creative name). We wrote about how Indiana organizations had been using AI and offered some tutorials for getting started (check it out at IBJ.com/ai-issue).
I thought that issue would usher in an AI era for the IBJ newsroom. That might have been a bit optimistic.
I had no plans then and have none now for AI to be writing stories or creating images that would run in IBJ’s print issue or on IBJ.com. But I thought we would have by now woven more AI technology into our news gathering.
We have a little bit. We use an AI-powered transcription service, especially for long interviews and for our weekly Q&As. The transcripts are an aid. They never go into the paper as is. The tool rarely gets names of companies right and misses words here and there. The transcription must always be checked.
I’ve used Google’s Gemini to brainstorm questions for interviews and to pull themes from podcasts and event recordings. I’m trying to use Microsoft’s Copilot to help me write some scripts to make formatting Word documents easier.
Our reporters have used Google Pinpoint to analyze large numbers of lawsuits, regulatory filings and other documents, looking for common names, addresses and other information.
Still, I thought we would have integrated more AI tools into the things we do every day.
After all, many companies are all in. Some are creating their own large language models—known as LLMs—into which they can feed their proprietary data and then query it to solve problems, do research and track trends.
Researchers are using AI to find new uses for drugs approved long ago. They’re creating chatbots for customers. They’re asking AI to analyze customer feedback. The examples are endless.
But we’re still getting started. And it turns out, we’re not alone in our slow adoption. This week, I began an AI training series created by the Online News Association to help newsroom managers harness the power of artificial intelligence in ways that improve efficiency and production without sacrificing ethics and accuracy. I’m just two sessions in, and I’ve realized that many newsrooms are also struggling with the best ways to use AI.
Across our cohort of news managers, the issues are similar: How do we find the resources (most notably time and money) to test and implement AI tools? How do we know how much to trust the results of our AI-assisted reporting (fact-checking the tools will always be important). And what are these tools doing with our data? Are they using IBJ’s content for training?
I suspect that these questions and challenges are similar to those that some of you are facing at your own companies and organizations. Even in places that are using AI and LLMs to solve big problems, there are likely ways individual employees and managers could be using AI to help with little ones.
If that’s your situation, take heart. You are not alone. Find a class, a seminar, a training program, something to help you get started. Or just dive in with Chat GPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot or any of the many other tools available for free. I recommend just asking the chatbot how it can help you and for tips for getting the most from its use.
Then let me know how it’s going. I’ll keep you up to date on our progress, too.•
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Weidenbener is editor and assistant publisher of IBJ and assistant publisher of The Indiana Lawyer. Reach her at [email protected].
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