By Marchel Espina

“I think when you talk about AI, there is a very real need for all of us to be fully aware of FOMO. What do I mean by FOMO? I think the kind of excitement that you are seeing over AI should actually make you pause. I know I sound like the contrarian here. I think there is a tendency for many of us in newsrooms everywhere to be easily seduced by it. Of course, the impact of AI is profound,” Ibrahim said.

The question is not simply which AI tools to adopt, but what purpose they serve, Ibrahim told participants at WAN-IFRA’s Digital Media Asia conference in Manila.

Newsroom needs vary greatly, and one solution will not fit all. “So we should resist FOMO. I think we should instead assess our own needs,” she added.

Ibrahim said she wanted to draw a parallel with search engine optimisation (SEO), noting that not everyone in the newsroom needed to become an expert when the technology first gained traction.

Putting AI into perspective

How much you need to know about data analytics actually depends on your job function, Ibrahim said. “My main message is we should pay attention to the rate of AI adoption by companies. I think the research so far shows that corporations in all industries are not adopting AI as quickly as you might expect,” she added.

There might be media organisations that are not changing because they remain in denial, Ibrahim noted.

“But economists and organisational behaviour experts say there may be rational reasons why big companies may be approaching AI with caution. They are not start-ups beginning from scratch. They are established organisations that need to keep their systems going. Sorry if I sound like I’m downbeat on AI. I’m not. I just want to put it all in perspective for you,” she said.

Trying to integrate entirely new systems without disrupting existing operations is not easy, so news organisations should expect to adopt different AI strategies, Ibrahim said.

“I saw that Rappler has a chatbot. We have it in our toolkit, but we are not ready to use it yet because we feel there may be other implications down the road for our readership and engagement. So we’d rather learn from others,” she said.

‘We are busy developing tools, but not in a hurry to roll them out’

The same is the case with summaries, Ibrahim pointed out, adding that during the past two years, many news organisations have embraced summaries and incorporated them on their websites.

“Internally, we developed the tool. And then when we were about to launch, we decided that we would pause. Because we believe it impacts your ability to do nuance, to engage, and to connect. If readers are staying on your website for a total of 10 seconds to just read your summaries, they are not going to be your readers when other sites offer faster and quicker summaries. So that’s a game that we are not ready to play yet. We have that tool. We are busy developing tools, but we are not in a hurry to roll them out,” Ibrahim explained.

In terms of transcriptions, translations, summaries, dataset searches, and headline testing, she said many newsrooms are already doing it. “We do that as well. But I think again, the danger here is that we have to be careful that we do not use AI as an excuse to milk more out of our journalists,” she said.

Disciplined AI use aimed at avoiding exploiting journalists

While the use of AI is widespread in the SCMP newsroom, Ibrahim noted, but they are very disciplined in making sure that they do not end up exploiting their journalists.

“We do see AI as very, very useful, but it can be a double-edged sword. So I think we should be humble enough to admit that our AI future is profoundly uncertain. Do not be too easily swayed by the prophets in the form of entrepreneurs who are trying to hype up their visions,” she said.

Tech-driven change will only take off if it first makes economic sense and, second, aligns with human habits and needs, Ibrahim said. She noted that while communities may become more engaged during times of crisis — when people seek to share information and data — sustaining that participation in day-to-day settings is far more difficult.

Activities such as e-participation and comment moderation are also highly resource-intensive, Ibrahim said.

“Everything that we do needs to be informed and guided by data and not just sheer guesswork,” she said.

At SCMP, they have had a data team supporting the newsroom for the past two decades, Ibrahim added. However, she noted that despite having that structure in place, it had not brought them to where they wanted to be.

“The data team collaborated closely with the newsroom in that they track the usual metrics … So our data team attends our morning and evening conferences. They sit with us. They provide the data. But things haven’t moved as quickly and as exponentially as we need them to,” Ibrahim said.

SCMP’s new chief technology officer sits within editorial

SCMP recently introduced major changes in how it approaches technology and data, including hiring a new chief technology officer who previously served as chief data scientist at the University of Michigan and had worked at Alibaba, SCMP’s parent company, she noted.

The move was not simply about recruiting talent from the parent company, but about fundamentally restructuring the organisation. Instead of reporting to the corporate side of the business, the new CTO now sits within the editorial department and reports directly to the editor-in-chief.

According to her, the shift places editorial needs and priorities at the center of product and technology decisions, a structure she acknowledged may seem obvious in hindsight, but one that many newsrooms are not necessarily built around.

SCMP believes the change will create stronger momentum toward a more focused deployment of technology and data, Ibrahim said.

“I want to say that despite the profound impact of AI in all that we do, if we are able to maintain the trust of our readers, if we are able to help them make sense of the world in ways others can’t, we will be relevant and will stay in business,” she said.

“My own view is that high-capacity journalistic organisations are still important because the world isn’t getting any easier for us to keep track of and make sense of. Most important issues are complex and require dogged tracking, persistently asking the right questions. And since people don’t have the time, we have no choice but to delegate these tasks to us journalists,” Ibrahim added.

About the author: Marchel Espina is a freelance journalist from the Philippines and a consultant for WAN-IFRA’s Women in News.