Could AI ever replace the news?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 17 September 2025
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In December 2023, a video was posted on X that generated a lot of attention. Gaining more than five million views in 24 hours, it showed a team of AI-generated TV anchors flawlessly delivering the day’s top headlines.
We investigate how the media industry is embracing artificial intelligence; from the outlets using the technology to re-voice presenters, to the start-ups that use it to script entire news reports.
We also look at the editorial issues facing journalists, ask about the public appetite for AI news, and speak to those fighting AI disinformation around the world.
If you'd like to get in touch with the programme, you can email us at [email protected]
Presenter: Sam Gruet Producer: Megan Lawton
(Picture: An AI-generated female TV news presenter on Channel 1 News. Credit: Channel 1)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.6 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service, with me, Sam Gruet. |
| 0:12.4 | In December 2023, a video was posted on the social media platform X that drew a lot of attention. |
| 0:20.4 | We did, I think it was a little over 5 million views on the first 24 hours across. social media platform X that drew a lot of attention. |
| 0:25.4 | We did, I think it was a little over 5 million views in the first 24 hours across several accounts. |
| 0:26.4 | It showed a team of AI-generated news anchors, flawlessly delivering the day's top headlines. |
| 0:33.6 | Military operations against Hamas by Israeli defense forces continue. |
| 0:37.4 | In the same year, media publication India Today launched its own AI anchor. |
| 0:42.8 | She is our first AI anchor, Sana. |
| 0:48.3 | But could AI generated content ever become the new normal for news? |
| 0:57.3 | All week on business daily, we've been exploring how artificial intelligence is changing the business world. Today, it's the turn of the |
| 1:04.5 | news, as we investigate how the news media is embracing the technology, the issues facing editors and readers alike, |
| 1:12.9 | and how people around the world are fighting AI disinformation. That's all coming up on today's |
| 1:19.3 | Business Daily. So I've been a journalist with the BBC for the best part of the last decade, |
| 1:27.4 | and what I'm about to do isn't part of my typical day. |
| 1:32.0 | It's not part of my usual workflow. |
| 1:34.4 | I'm going to use the most popular AI chatbot. |
| 1:37.5 | That's chat GPT, although others are, of course, available. |
| 1:41.5 | And I'm going to ask it to write me the opening of a script on the use |
| 1:46.0 | of AI within news media. So I want it to be conversational. And then I'm going to ask another |
| 1:54.0 | bit of software, 11 Labs, to deliver it in a news reporter's voice. Okay, let's see how this goes. |
| 2:01.2 | Artificial intelligence is already writing headlines, summarising articles, |
... |
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