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Our special podcast documentary explores how local media organisations have got started with AI projects, the benefits they're seeing, the challenges they've faced and what advice they would give to other publishers looking to get into AI. This episode and our corresponding report have been made possible with the support of United Robots.\nThere's one topic everyone is talking about right now: AI. Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in November 2022, the potential of AI tools have become very clear to the otherwise uninitiated. Now, everyone from politicians to teachers, technologists, artists and writers are having to grapple with the explosion in use of generative AI and the very real impact it will have on our everyday lives.\nBut away from the hype of ChatGPT, Bard and other headline-grabbing AI chatbots and generators, it\u2019s important to remember that AI isn\u2019t a new area for publishers. From simple tasks like social media posts to content recommendations right through to more complex tasks like distilling mass datasets in a way that reporters can make sense of, we\u2019ve been using these tools for a number of years.\nFor publishers of all shapes and sizes, artificial intelligence is still a largely untapped area. Some prominent brands like BuzzFeed have made industry headlines by announcing their plans to use AI to generate quizzes, while CNET won\u2019t be the last publication to get in trouble for letting major errors slip through on articles written by robots.\nWe\u2019re buckling up for an absolute tsunami of AI-generated content - more than any of us will be able to consume in our lifetimes. The opportunity for publishers, then, as pointed out by Douglas McCabe of Enders Analysis, is to distinguish themselves from the rest of the internet.\nThis doesn\u2019t mean shunning AI. Instead, we should be looking at how we can use it to free writers, reporters and journalists up to do what they do best.\nLooking to local media\nSome of the best examples of how this can work in practice can be seen in local media. Often, such organisations have fewer resources than big names like the New York Times or Bloomberg, and certainly aren\u2019t able to indulge in speculative development and testing of these tools. Instead, there has to be a clearly defined use case, straightforward implementation, and measurable return on investment.\nThis has been the focus of a new report from Media Voices: Practical AI for Local Media. In this report, Peter Houston explores the myths and misconceptions surrounding AI, what it looks like in practice in local media organisations, the benefits it brings, and how to get started.\nThe report also includes five case studies from local publishers around the world - who you\u2019ll be hearing from throughout this episode - and how they\u2019ve been using AI tools for years to create and publish journalism that gives local media an edge. We\u2019ve focused on local news organisations, but the processes they went through internally to explore and apply AI tools can benefit publishers of all shapes and sizes, so it's still relevant if you\u2019re looking at what AI can do for you.\nIn this corresponding documentary-style episode, we hear directly from the publishers themselves and other industry experts about how they approached finding use cases for AI, getting staff on board, tackling issues that came up, and the advice they would give to other publishers looking to get started themselves.\nInterviewees:\nElin Stueland, Online Editor, Stavanger Aftenblad\nJoseph Hook, Editor, RADAR AI\nJens Pettersson, Head of Editorial Development, NTM\nLuuk Willekens, Data & Innovation Manager, NRC Media\nCynthia DuBose, Vice President, Audience Growth & Content Monetization, McClatchy\nProfessor Charlie Beckett, Director, The Journalism AI Project, LSE\nCecilia Campbell, Chief Marketing Officer, United Robots\nThanks to United Robots who have sponsored our Practical AI for Local Media report and this episode. Their mission is to empower local news publishers by helping f