Kaja Distad is Head of Editorial Innovation at Polaris Media Vest and, since June 2026, AI & Innovation Driver at Polaris Media, a newly created role spanning newsrooms across Norway and Sweden. Her focus is on helping smaller local newsrooms adopt AI in practical, impactful ways.

She works on strengthening local journalism through the use of AI, automating the use of public data to make information more accessible and relevant for both journalists and readers, and developing newsroom-friendly tools, workflows and AI-powered services.

Kaja also develops real-time digital products built around local data and reporting needs, with a particular emphasis on identifying practical, high-impact solutions that smaller newsrooms can implement quickly.

Alongside her product and innovation work, she regularly leads workshops and training sessions on AI literacy, practical newsroom applications of AI, data journalism, vibe coding and agentic coding. Her approach is firmly hands-on, with the goal of making experimentation and new technologies accessible to every journalist.

Kaja began her career as a journalist at the local newspapers Askøyværingen and Vestnytt, near Bergen, Norway’s second-largest city.