"I hoped 2025 would bring clarity about how generative artificial intelligence would change the media. It didn't. There was no "deepfake apocalypse," only the steady flow of AI slop onto our social media feeds. AI companies signed licensing deals with news organizations, but lawsuits between the two parties remain unresolved. And newsrooms continued their cycle of loud failures and quiet experimentation with the technology."
"In those stories, and across the peaks and troughs of AI in journalism this year, I found one throughline: guardrails. Who built them, who ignored them and what happened when they failed. "Move fast and break things" versus "seek truth and minimize harm" has always been an easy choice in journalism. But as we compete with AI chatbots that answer questions instantly and search engines that bury our links, that choice is getting harder."
Generative AI did not trigger a dramatic deepfake collapse in 2025; instead, AI-generated content steadily saturated social feeds while licensing deals and lawsuits proliferated. Newsrooms continued cycles of conspicuous failures alongside quiet experimentation with new tools. Two notable episodes—the Washington Post's aggressive AI product rollout and Disney's legal push that led to a $1 billion agreement with OpenAI over character use—highlighted tensions over commercialization and intellectual property. The recurring issue centered on guardrails: who built them, who ignored them, and the consequences of failure. Newsrooms must balance rapid experimentation with preserving humanity and trust.
Read at Poynter
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