Gaining experience with an AI-supported recommendation chatbot using ChatGPT
How can a medium-sized newspaper process its countless press releases more efficiently using AI? What aspects need to be taken into account and what changes are necessary? The Siegener Zeitung dealt with these and other questions when it implemented the introduction of an AI tool with the help of the Future Center KI NRW.
Initial situation
For some time now, the Siegener Zeitung has been processing hundreds of press releases and the entire inbox centrally at the so-called news desk. As a rule, these are Notification from institutions, hospitals, chambers of commerce and even small fruit and horticultural associations that would also like to have their event publicized.
“Since switching to a modern and contemporary news desk structure, email processing has played an even more central role at the Siegener Zeitung. The effort is enormous – and so far we have never been able to get this process under control really efficiently.”
Christian Schwermer, Head of Newsdesk Online, Siegener Zeitung
Challenge and collaboration with the KI NRW Future Center
The Siegener Zeitung has recognized that this process is very time-consuming and error-prone, which can also affect the quality of individual messages. It is a core journalistic competence that must be preserved, but in the course of the digital transformation, the Siegener Zeitung would prefer to use these journalistic skills in a completely different place in a more targeted and meaningful way.
“The idea of using artificial intelligence specifically for support immediately excited me. Having our own AI-supported chatbot that can do a lot of this work for us – that sounded like real progress to us.”
Christian Schwermer, Head of Newsdesk Online, Siegener Zeitung
The idea of introducing a chatbot was first developed in an internal brainstorming session at the Siegener Zeitung. For this purpose, it seemed necessary to bring in an expert, for which the KI NRW Future Center was brought on board.
“It wasn’t just about developing this bot together – we embedded the project in a larger strategic context from the start.”
Christian Schwermer, Head of Newsdesk Online, Siegener Zeitung
Solution approach
Following a socio-technical approach, requirements for the system were collected empirically, which were then discussed in a participatory manner with all those involved. Among other things, it was determined that the differences in format and quality – based on inquiries received by email – and the transfer to high-quality press releases are a complex process for which a language model must be set very specifically. In this respect, it was not enough to solve the problem using prompt engineering (the art of giving precise instructions to the chatbot system). Rather, it required a more complex solution, a so-called fine-tuning. The chatbot system was retrained with many practical examples. Only then did the bot replicate the behavior from the examples and thus become an “expert” in autonomously writing press releases.
In the specific case of the Siegener Zeitung, a comprehensive data set was created by the newspaper’s employees, made available to the Future Center and processed. The data set had to consist of a wide variety of examples that were as representative as possible of actual practice, which is why the preparation process was very extensive. This also included the development of an evaluation system, which was used to iteratively test and adapt the technical solution. At the same time, it was examined which interface is best suited for users to work with the bot in their everyday work.
“Our bot works in such a way that we can insert complete press releases into the interface. Of course, we pay strict attention to all data protection regulations. The Future Center has developed our own, protected user interface. Within a few seconds, the bot delivers an edited version of the release – often in a form that would later be conceivable for online and print. Of course, we still check all content with the necessary journalistic care thoroughly before anything is published.”
Christian Schwermer, Head of Newsdesk Online, Siegener Zeitung
This data protection and journalistic care ensures compliance with the new EU AI regulation, which makes a transparency requirement for all texts created with AI with an impact intended for the public mandatory across the EU from 2026.
When introducing the chatbot, care was taken right from the start to involve the responsible editorial team in designing the system. For this purpose, joint workshops were held in order to include the needs of employees in the design of the AI solution in cooperation with the publishing management, the editor-in-chief and also with the works council. It quickly became clear that although the AI chatbot was able to carry out highly standardized tasks very effectively, skills such as journalistic rigor and high-quality work were not supplemented and were given greater scope. Even if the bot brings enormous effort and time savings for the editorial team of the Siegener Zeitung, it cannot completely replace human care.
“The concern that AI will one day create complex articles such as editorials at the push of a button is understandable. That’s precisely why it was important to us to involve all colleagues in the development process right from the start. We wanted to show that the bot doesn’t take away our journalistic skills – rather, it gives us more time for exactly those. It relieves us of the burden in our day-to-day business and creates space for more important digital tasks Transformation.”
Christian Schwermer, Head of Newsdesk Online, Siegener Zeitung
We would like to thank the Siegener Zeitung for the successful collaboration and are excited to see how the company develops with the successful introduction of this AI solution. We look forward to further collaboration! And finally:
“I’m particularly pleased that we were able to turn this into a cross-departmental project. This collaboration across departmental boundaries was an important success factor – and I’m really grateful for that.”
Christian Schwermer, Head of Newsdesk Online, Siegener Zeitung
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