Incorporating AI in the Newsroom: Le Parisien’s Journey to Innovation and Efficiency

In the fast-paced world of journalism, staying ahead of the curve is crucial. For Le Parisien, one of the largest newspapers in France, this meant embracing artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline workflows and enhance content production. At the WAN-IFRA World Congress 2024, we had the pleasure of discussing their journey with Marion Souzeau and Stan de Livonnière, key members of Le Parisien’s team.

Le Parisien’s journey with AI

Marion Souzeau, in charge of digital editorial projects and tools at Le Parisien, and Stanislas de Livonnière, head of the data and innovation department, shared their experiences with integrating AI into their workflows. Marion noted that automation in the newsroom isn’t entirely new. In fact, Le Parisien has a strong history of using automation to power newsroom efficiency.

With the emergence of GenAI tools, Le Parisien, a customer of Arc XP since December 2017, sought new ways to help their journalists save time and concentrate on their core mission of gathering and sharing important stories. When Arc XP introduced AI-powered tools to streamline content creation and distribution, Le Parisien eagerly joined the beta program for Arc Intelligence, a new suite of GenAI-powered tools designed to support journalists.

Built on Amazon Bedrock, these tools help content creators work more efficiently while maintaining content quality. Arc XP’s AI Editor uses GenAI to automate translation, summarization, story tagging, social post creation, and other day-to-day tasks.

At the event, Le Parisien shared their journey with AI adoption and provided guidance for other media organizations looking to integrate AI into their newsrooms.

Early AI implementations

In order to ensure their AI strategy was effective, Le Parisien took a targeted and pragmatic approach. “We’re not making AI to make AI. That’s not rational,” said Stan. “It needs to save time or save money or allow us to explore new formats or new revenue streams.”

Le Parisien focused on pinpointing time-consuming tasks that diverted journalists from more critical activities and would be good candidates for automation with AI. Some specific examples Le Parisien found include:

Tagging Stories: Journalists often struggle to choose the appropriate tags for each story, a task that AI can streamline.
Finding Photos: Automating the process of finding relevant images.
Finding Related Links: Previously, staff would manually search for related links, a process that AI can now automate by ranking relevant links within the CMS.
Exploring New Formats: Le Parisien had previously utilized automation to deliver localized news to cities beyond Paris, a practice that AI can further enhance.

Stan also discussed their early efforts in automation, such as developing data-to-content solutions. These solutions helped generate hundreds of articles for various cities around Paris, paving the way for more advanced AI applications.

Training and adoption

Le Parisien began their AI integration with a targeted group of users, starting with community managers. These individuals, who are both journalists and tech enthusiasts, were keen to experiment proactively. They emphasized the importance of sharing the benefits of AI with journalists, assuring them that AI is here to simplify their jobs, not replace them.

“We are working with the AI Editor to help our journalists concentrate on their first and primary mission — not manual tasks like tagging stories or finding photos, which don’t really add value. We’re helping journalists gather and share information more efficiently, which is what our readers care about,” said Marion.

Le Parisien prepared a comprehensive training plan to ensure journalists could use the tools effectively. Video tutorials and step-by-step approaches helped smooth the transition, with proactive staff members acting as ambassadors for the new technology.

Feedback and collaboration

Le Parisien’s collaboration with Arc XP has been instrumental in shaping their AI roadmap. Regular feedback sessions and a clear set of prerequisites have ensured that the tools developed meet the newsroom’s needs. Transparency, flexibility, user-friendly interfaces, and customizable prompts have been key components of this successful partnership. To serve as a guide, Stan highlighted several key requirements for collaborating with vendors on AI:

Transparency: Ensuring a clear understanding of the AI’s architecture and functionality.
Flexibility with New LLMs: Being able to test and integrate new language models as they emerge.
UI Support for Workflows: The user interface needs to align with existing workflows to minimize disruption.
Control Over Prompts: Allowing newsrooms to customize and control prompts within the AI editor.

These principles have guided the development process and fostered a strong, collaborative relationship between Le Parisien and Arc XP. By maintaining open lines of communication and prioritizing these key requirements, they have successfully created tools that are not only effective but also intuitive and adaptable to the unique needs of the newsroom.

Looking ahead

Le Parisien’s story showcases the transformative power of AI in journalism. By collaborating with Arc XP, they have optimized workflows, increased efficiencies, and empowered journalists to focus on storytelling. With the AI Editor and a customizable AI API, they handle tasks more efficiently and innovate in content production. Their approach—starting with targeted users and ensuring transparent vendor collaboration—offers valuable insights for other media organizations. As AI technology evolves, Le Parisien remains at the forefront of newsroom innovation, setting a benchmark for others to follow.

Visit our AI with Arc XP page to discover how leading media organizations worldwide are integrating AI into their strategies.