The big challenges facing the news industry were all-consuming in 2017, and rightly so. On top of a relentless news cycle, newsrooms were focused on partisan attacks, information disorders, changing revenue models, the move to mobile, and the ever-changing dynamics with the platforms. In other words, today’s reality.
In 2018, publishers will begin to make room for tomorrow’s reality, in which new AI-driven technologies upend the way consumers seek, discover, consume, and share news and information. Over the next few years, advances in natural language processing, voice recognition, augmented reality, and automation will change consumer behavior to the point that some people predict the end of smartphones as we know them today.
Let’s group AI’s impact on news into three big buckets:
Will all this have a massive impact in 2018? Maybe not. But I’m reminded of the Bill Gates line that we always overestimate the change that will come in the next two years and underestimate the change that will come in 10. Are news organizations thinking about what AI will mean for business models? For access to quality information? For content discovery? For news gathering? For fake news? For employee skills, staffing, and work flow? Are journalism schools preparing the next generation of news leaders? I think the answer so far, is mostly — no. But in 2018, the awakening will begin.
Vivian Schiller is executive editor in residence at Weber Shandwick.
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