Google is organising an Artificial Intelligence (AI) academy to train journalists. Developed through the Google News Initiative, this initiative is supported by a group of experts from the London School of Economics and Political Science and is aimed at small newsrooms.
In all, 20 media professionals will have the opportunity to explore the potential of AI in journalism, and the training will take place online. The programme is free of charge and will last six weeks, starting next September.
According to Google, the academy’s lecturers are journalists and industry-leading researchers working precisely on the intersection between journalism and AI. As for the chosen trainees, they will be journalists and programmers from small news organisations in the EMEA region – that is, Europe, Middle East and Africa.
At the end of the programme, participants should have a practical understanding of the challenges and opportunities of AI technologies. To this end, they will be confronted with examples of how to use AI to make journalists’ work more efficient by automating repetitive tasks, for example, such as transcribing interviews or searching for images.
AI could also help optimise newsroom processes through insights into which content is producing the most engagement with the audience.
The idea is that this technology could contribute to building new audiences, while ensuring journalists have more time to dedicate to creative aspects, for example.
For now, the AI training academy is a pilot project, but Google plans to extend the programme to other regions as early as next year.
