The most valuable thing AI can do for media isn’t save time

Newsrooms spent three years making the old thing cheaper. Opportunity AI asks: What could readers get from you that they never could before?

[Source Illustration: Adobe Stock]

Pete Pachal is a journalist and the creator of Media Copilot, a newsletter and podcast that examines how AI is changing media, journalism, and the news.

Over the past three years, almost all of the discussion on the use of AI in media has been about efficiency: how much time AI can save you when it helps with story ideas, research, production, headlines, social copy, and even, to some extent, writing. All of those use cases are about doing basically the same thing, only faster.

No shame in any of it—efficiency is a worthy goal, and artificial intelligence can help immensely in advancing it. But AI can also open up novel ways of achieving the ultimate goal: connecting and engaging with audiences who find your information valuable. This is “opportunity AI,” and it’s........

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