How Schibsted is using AI to boost efficiency for their newsrooms and their readers

Overview

Schibsted Media (Norway) uses generative AI across its newsrooms via several tools: a suggested-stories feature at VG that maintains an 85% thumbs-up ratio comparable to lead stories; Videofy, an in-house service that generates 20-second news videos instantly from published articles, integrated into its Content Management System; and ARIA, an AI framework of specialised agents that lets staff query real-time compiled data through platforms like Slack. Journalists also use an AI toolbox, built by a journalist rather than the AI team, to generate potential questions and answers around articles using models including Claude and GPT.

The challenge

Schibsted's rich data and insights were difficult for staff to access easily, often locked behind dashboards and passwords with nobody sure where the relevant tables or graphics were. Readers, meanwhile, faced the risk of attention drain trying to stay up to date with ongoing news topics, and producing news video content was costly and complex.

The solution

Schibsted built a suggested-stories feature at VG that helps readers continue reading on topics they have already engaged with. Videofy, an in-house AI service integrated into Schibsted's Content Management System, generates 20-second news videos instantly from any published article by pulling text, images and video clips already present in the source article, with editors retaining the ability to edit before publication. ARIA is an AI framework of specialised agents, each focused on a particular data set (such as subscription, brand or newspaper data) with a coordinating agent, letting staff retrieve real-time compiled data by asking questions through platforms like Slack. Journalists also built their own AI toolbox that generates potential questions and answers around articles using models including Claude and GPT.

Reported business value

The suggested-stories feature achieves the same amount of click-throughs as the first story, with an 85% thumbs-up ratio comparable to lead stories. ARIA democratizes access to insights that were previously difficult to obtain, available to anyone within the company via simple questions.