Drivers of Professional-AI Collaboration: Case Study Analyses of the German News Media Industry

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly becoming part of many processes in the news media industry. It is seen as highly relevant for speeding up workflows and content personalisation. At the same time, the introduction of AI is having a strong impact on workflows, trust, roles and responsibilities of the professional newsworkers, who are consequently often reluctant to collaborate with the new, intelligent technology. These case study analyses investigate with an HMC (human-machine communication) lens how to create conditions for supporting and improving professional-AI collaboration. Besides identifying relevant drivers, existing overlaps of human-machine collaboration theory and other theoretical fields as well as practical measures for management and AI providers to promote professional-AI collaboration in the newsroom will be uncovered. The results highlight (1) comprehensibility of the AI, (2) the AI’s benefits and (3) knowledge sharing as most important drivers. The study introduces furthermore concrete indications for future research.