In an age of infinite content, the media brands people already trust may become more valuable – precisely because everything else is drowning in noise. That’s a key takeaway of this DLD26 expert panel moderated by Henry Blodget, founder and CEO of Regenerator and former head of Business Insider.
“What is going to stay the same is: as long as there are human beings, we will always want to know what is happening and what it means”, Blodget says. “And that is what journalism is and does.”
Florencia Schiavon, CEO of Sifted, argues that publishers must embrace AI as a vital productivity tool. By eliminating streamlining operations, AI allows reporters to dedicate their time to relationship-building, she says, which is vital because “community continues to be the most important aspect in our world. And this personal relationship that journalism creates is necessary.”
Almar Latour, CEO of Dow Jones and Publisher of The Wall Street Journal, sees journalism “at an existential moment” as AI bots crawl the Web in search for information and training data. “Information has value”, Latour says. “It cannot just be taken, processed, and then distributed without permission and without copyright law.”
Gordon Saft, Publisher of Rest of World, sees a similar risk, but also points out that AI helps level the playing field for smaller publishers, as it allows them to rapidly develop apps and websites “that it would have taken a huge product and technology team to build even 12 months ago.”
Watch the video to explore this session in detail.
