AI as an Assistant in the Newsroom
In today’s reality, AI has already become part of everyday life. And news production is no exception. What’s more, AI is no longer just a theoretical tool; it’s slowly becoming a reliable team member in newsrooms around the world. AI in broadcasting goes beyond simple automation, and production teams have been exploring ways of integrating AI across the entire workflow: from story idea to publication. AI tools can now assist editors in running checks, locating and validating content, assisting with timings, and helping make real-time decisions. Why? Not to replace human editors and operators, but to relieve the workload, reduce repetitive work, and allow teams to focus on editorial quality and storytelling.
Rundown as the Center of Production
What used to be a static document, with the help of AI, is becoming a living, shared workspace. The rundown has become the center for many news productions, connecting story planning, scripts, timings, and executions that happen on air. And as many productions become more software-driven, AI fit naturally into the setup, helping the editorial team make decisions live on air, when every second counts.
AI’s Role in Publishing
AI newsroom tools integrated into workflows beyond planning. Once the rundown is set, AI can assist with tasks like marking content, preparing clips for multiple platforms, generating summaries and headlines or supporting publishing workflows in other ways. This approach still keeps decision-making in the hands of editors, but it does reduce the workload and cognitive pressure. For newsrooms operating under high pressure and tight deadlines, AI becomes a very practical solution that extends the newsroom’s capabilities by integrating into existing workflows, instead of adding an extra layer of technical complexity.
Why AI Adoption Is Not Equal Across Newsrooms
However, AI adoption does not look the same in every newsroom. Larger organisations often have more resources to explore AI options for their newsrooms, while smaller teams might struggle to integrate new technology into existing workflows. This creates a real risk of uneven progress across the industry.
In order for AI to become truly valuable in news production, it has to be implemented hradually into the existing, familiar workflows. The only way to have a real impact on the industry, AI needs to remain accessible so that it can become part of the everyday workflows, and not separate, isolated experiements by the privileged few.
Beyond Proof-of-Concept: AI Agents in Live Production
Last year, we participated in the AI Assistance Agents for Live Production accelerator project at IBC 2025, which won the Project of the Year Award, as well as the Broadcast Tech Innovation Award. This initiative was a real-life example of how AI can and will fit into the modern newsroom reality. It explored how AI agents can support live news production by working directly within newsroom workflows such as rundowns and automation systems.
The key message is: instead of asking teams to adapt to AI, the AI adapts to the newsroom.
By using natural language, shared context, and existing news production tools, the project showed that AI can act as an active, context-aware teammate in live production, using real newsroom tools to support editorial and technical tasks in real time.
Ecaterina Caprari
Content Marketeer