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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Tuesday, March 10th. I'm Isabelle Bousquet for The Wall Street Journal. Today, we're looking at two industries that seemed ripe for AI disruption, or maybe even death. But so far, we're seeing the opposite. First, AI might be the savior local news has been waiting for.
Across the country, local reporters are using the tech to cover more stories more deeply, although it's not without risks. Next up, the consulting industry is also getting a boost from AI giants. We're diving into how a flurry of deals between AI labs and large consultancies are mutually beneficial, at least for now.
But first, for years, AI has felt like a threat to journalism, with its promise to create loads of cheap content online without any human intervention. But it turns out the technology has actually been a boon for local news.
Reporters in underfunded and understaffed newsrooms are now using AI to monitor police scanners in town meetings, saving them hours that they say they can now spend on deeper investigative reporting. Across the industry, AI is writing the first drafts of an article, which a human then edits.
Wall Street Journal media reporter Alexandra Bruel joins us to talk about how it's all working and what could go wrong. Alex, from your perspective, how much of a game changer is this for these local reporters and these local outlets?
It depends on the outlet and it depends on the reporter. I've talked to a number of people who say that this is huge. This enables them to do better coverage, to write about communities that have long gone uncovered, to potentially do more investigative reporting and cover stories and topics that they've been wanting to dig into. I talked to one reporter and
At Axios, who covers Des Moines and is looking forward to the time that it's saving her so that she can go out and do more investigative work on water quality issues in the state. There's a lot of excitement around that time saving and the ability to be able to do some real reporting and to more quickly and efficiently file FOIA requests for public records.
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Chapter 2: How is AI becoming a savior for local news?
So there's a fear there in over-relying on AI to do the drafting of stories, to taking jobs. There's also a fear that some of the time saved could be used for more AI slop or just, hey, reporter, you now have... 10% more time in your day, go generate more quick stories that aren't necessarily meaningful.
So there's a fear that this will just turn into a content engine, you know, in some places, as opposed to a means to good journalism.
You wrote about at least one AI company that has started creating its own local news sites. Curious about what's going on there.
It's a really interesting company. It's called Nota. And this company works with newsrooms and media companies around the country to help them with their operating system and using AI tools and plugging into systems. But something they're doing as well is they're starting their own local news sites. They are trying to prove out a concept. It's really an experiment at this point.
They've built 11 news sites around the country that are managed online. by two part-time bilingual editors who are able to collect and curate data and very quickly turn this data into story drafts and publish these story drafts on topics from weather to local events to more important newsworthy events. information about what's going on in these towns.
And so what they're trying to do is to show that they can use AI for efficiencies and eventually they can generate revenue through traffic and advertising and potentially AI licensing. That revenue can go back into the sites and eventually they The hope and the goal is to be able to fund the expansion of these sites and journalists and actual investigative reporting that the bots can't do.
That was Wall Street Journal media reporter Alexandra Bruau. What are your thoughts on the future of AI-powered journalism?
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Chapter 3: What benefits are local reporters experiencing with AI?
If you're a listener on Spotify, be sure to leave us a comment with your thoughts. Coming up, America's largest companies are struggling to get real value from AI. But it's a windfall for the consulting groups promising to help them. That's after the break.
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It turns out AI does need management consultants after all. Despite fears that AI tools could displace expensive consultancy engagements, the leading AI companies are tapping consulting partners more than ever. Fueling the boom are a host of new partnerships between tech giants like OpenAI and Anthropic and consulting firms like McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group.
who together promised to bring both the cutting-edge tech and the playbook for how to actually deploy it. But is it working? WSJ's Alison Pohle joins us to discuss. So companies like OpenAI and Anthropic theoretically have great technology. What do they need the McKinsey's and BCG's of the world for and why? Why are they so interested in striking these deals?
So they have the tech, but they don't have enough engineers or enough people to explain how it works and to get it into all of these companies. So what the McKinsey's and BCG's provide is those client relationships where they've already been working with a ton of companies. They have been engaged. part of their workflows. In some cases, they know how things work.
And so they're able to then bring the tech into those companies. So it's not necessarily an exclusive partnership that they have with OpenAI, but they do have access to the OpenAI team, to the resources, to be able to say, hey, can you help us figure out exactly how this workflow should work or how we should redesign things for this specific company?
So it essentially gives the AI companies a bigger workforce because they have people working on the tech on their behalf.
And how are the teams and pricing structures set up for these engagements? And does it differ from the typical consulting engagements in the past?
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Chapter 4: What are the risks of AI in journalism?
That was Wall Street Journal reporter Alison Pohle. News Corp, owner of the Wall Street Journal, has a content licensing partnership with OpenAI. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. If you're a listener on Spotify, be sure to leave us a comment. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with supervising producer Katie Ferguson. I'm Isabel Busquets for The Wall Street Journal.
We'll be back later this morning with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.
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