Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The Independent is launching a news service using Google AI tools to provide summaries of its articles overseen by its journalists, as newsrooms scramble to adapt to the existential threat posed by the technology. The London-based media group, which last year took control of BuzzFeed and Huffington Post in the UK and Ireland, will launch the platform later this month, and has signed a commercial deal with “WeAre8”, a social media platform backed by ex-footballer Rio Ferdinand. WeAre8 will sponsor the platform, called Bulletin, and will also help to distribute it. The service will be launched first via the Independent and then with its own website, and will use Google’s Gemini AI model to provide summaries of its stories which will be edited by journalists.Christian Broughton, chief executive of The Independent, said the service would provide “trusted, verified journalism for those times when you are in a hurry”. The move comes as newsrooms around the world grapple with how to benefit from AI, amid fears that the new technology could be used to scrape and replicate news media without permission, and risk serious errors. Addressing concerns triggered by the rise of AI-generated news feeds and summaries — including those being developed by AI start-ups such as Perplexity AI — Broughton said the service had been developed by, and would be led by, journalists. The Independent has hired a team to oversee Bulletin, which Broughton said was evidence that AI would not replace traditional journalism but would instead offer new ways of delivering news. The service’s summaries will also be approved by the journalists responsible for the longer-form articles on which the shorter, AI-generated posts will be based. Broughton said the product would involve “no scraping [and] no disruptions” risked by AI-only news services, adding: “There are lots of bad uses of AI.” The rapid development of AI tools has led to a string of recent deals with traditional publishers. Groups such as OpenAI have signed commercial partnerships and licensing agreements with News Corp and the Financial Times, which both allow ChatGPT users to see select attributed summaries, quotes and links.But clashes have also sprung up between media groups and start-ups, and errors have in some cases emerged with AI output. Last year Perplexity announced revenue-sharing agreements with Automattic, Der Spiegel and Time, following accusations that it was surreptitiously scraping media websites to feed into its search service.Meanwhile, Apple was forced to suspend an automated news summary feature generated by AI earlier this year that showed false or misleading information. The UK government is currently consulting on proposals that could allow AI companies easier access to the content of newspapers, as well as music, books and films, unless companies specifically opt out. Executives have warned that this could open up new problems for traditional media groups, as AI-generated news content could be allowed to proliferate without editorial checks for accuracy. Consumers’ increasing reliance on social media sites for news has already caused concern, with Channel 4 boss Alex Mahon arguing that the UK must “resist the slide into the American news swamp”.Bulletin will initially offer news summaries for its existing readership, but the group plans to launch its own website and app, and use the platform to distribute audio content as well. The service will be free but readers will be asked to register for the updates in future, with tools to be introduced to allow greater personalisation of the news feed.Geordie Greig, The Independent’s editor-in-chief, said Bulletin would be “AI with human editorial supervision [that will] allow us to cut to the chase with essential news briefing”.
