In 2024, the journalism industry will be forced to reinvent the news experience.

The coming year will be defined by the increasing prominence of generative AI search, which offers AI-generated summaries and responses to user inquiries in a conversational format. This will decimate search traffic for news media. In response to the risks from generative AI and its effects on the journalism business model, publishers will need to rethink the news.

Let’s be honest: Our transition from print to digital news has been more of a format shift than a true evolution. Now, we must transform news media from mere sources of information to engaging destinations, a role currently dominated by social media and search engines. The reliance on traffic from these platforms, as 2023 has shown us, is a fragile strategy.

The key to these platforms’ success lies in their exceptional user experience and constant reinvention, a strategy that newsrooms must adopt.
Looking ahead to 2024, I envision a year where newsrooms innovate how news is presented, tailoring it to individual user preferences. This means moving beyond the generic approach and creating compelling reasons for the audience to engage directly with news platforms.

As reliance on search engine traffic declines, we must abandon the one-size-fits-all approach and focus on diversifying the user experience, from how content is presented and localized to embracing interactive formats. The focus now should be on creating varied experiences, whether through repackaging and translating content, enhancing app interfaces, or possibly shifting from reading the news to talking to the news.

After 2023’s focus on text generation AI, 2024 is set to be the year of multimodal AI, offering exciting possibilities for news media to redefine the user experience.

It’s time to think beyond surface-level personalization, like a personalized email newsletter or a homepage. We need to reimagine how people consume and interact with news on our platforms. While we’ve shifted our content strategies to meet the demands of various external platforms, the real question remains: Have we truly transformed the news experience on our own platforms?

Earlier this year, on the Newsroom Robots podcast, Uli Koeppen of the German public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk explained how their “Regional Remix” app offers personalized audio news based on a listener’s location. Users receive news specifically tailored to their location, whether automatically located by the app or through a manually entered postal code. This innovation in personalization is a glimpse into the future, a strategy that broadens the reach by delivering stories that offer a deeper, more relevant connection with the audience.

As we move into 2024, I expect such exciting experiments with audio personalization to grow, embracing more nuanced personalization in language and tone using generative AI. To successfully navigate this transformation, I foresee a deep commitment to AI literacy developing within newsrooms. AI literacy training will go beyond the confines of product development teams and extend to individuals across the newsroom, enabling them to understand and effectively use AI.

Additionally, journalism education institutions will play a critical role in this evolution. By integrating AI literacy into their curricula, they can equip future journalists with the necessary skills and understanding to thrive in an AI-enhanced newsroom.

Understanding the capabilities and limitations of generative AI is essential as we progress into an era increasingly influenced by AI. Large language models are language generators, but they don’t inherently produce knowledge. This distinction is at the core of what journalism provides.
Our approach to AI should shift from just considering it for content generation to innovating and creating new, engaging news experiences.