Publishers using ChatGPT to improve headlines and suggest feature ideas

ChatGPT and other generative AI tools can be useful productivity tools in the newsroom.

The "Beyond Google: Charting the new search landscape" panel at the PPA Festival 2023. From second left: Sarah Marshall, global executive director, distribution and channel strategy at Condé Nast, Carly Steven, global head of SEO at Mail Online, and John Barnes, chief digital officer at William Reed. Picture: PPA

ChatGPT and other generative AI tools should not send publishers into “panic mode”, digital bosses at Conde Nast and William Reed have said.

Instead, they suggested AI can most usefully be implemented as productivity tools – for example, to improve headlines, for search engine optimisation, to generate ideas around an SEO theme and to better understand the likely intent of users.

John Barnes, chief digital officer at The Grocer and The Morning Advertiser publisher William Reed, told the PPA Festival in London that “the human and the AI working together is getting a better result, I think”.