WEKA Fachmedien has announced an online video news channel hosted by a presenter called Elli. The twist is that Elli isn’t real: she has been created by AI technology.
Moving forward, elektroniknet will provide a weekly news overview in a compact video format with Elli presenting specialist content. The goal is to ensure up-to-date news coverage is being provided to the audience, without reducing the quality or relevance of reporting.
elektroniknet editors will continue to be responsible for the content, while Elli will present the content in an accessible and appealing video format.
This is an interesting move, and using a video presenter has several benefits. It will save time in developing a script and avoids asking journalists who may not be too keen to be in front of a camera, to present the news. WEKA will also own the AI avatar, so it isn’t something that can leave the publishing house.
There are potentially a couple of cons in taking this path, one being that an AI newsreader could be less engaging than a real person and that they aren’t a presenter you can use at events as content needs to be pre-prepared.
That said, it is great to see WEKA Fachmedien experiment with AI and we are sure that other publications will be watching with great interest.
