BBC advances Generative AI integration with focus on responsibility and innovation

Under the guidance of Rhodri Talfan Davies, the BBC has provided an update on its strategic approach towards integrating and utilizing Generative AI (Gen AI) technology across its operations.

This comes after the initial announcement in October 2023, where the corporation set forth three foundational principles aimed at guiding its engagement with Gen AI:

• Acting in the public interest
• Prioritizing talent and creativity
• Maintaining openness and transparency with its audience.

The update elaborates on the progress made since October, highlighting the commencement of several Gen AI pilot projects designed to explore the technology’s potential to enhance content creation and operational efficiency. These pilot projects are divided into three thematic areas: maximizing the value of existing content, creating new audience experiences, and simplifying production processes.

Maximizing content value

Among the pilots focused on content value maximization are initiatives to translate news articles into multiple languages, led by BBC News, and efforts to reformat live sports commentary into text for BBC Sport’s live pages. These projects aim to extend the reach and appeal of the BBC’s content to a broader audience.

Creating new audience experiences

Innovations under this theme include the development of a BBC Assistant, a chatbot designed to offer interactive and tailored learning experiences on the BBC Bitesize platform. Additionally, the corporation is investigating how Gen AI could enable more personalized marketing of its content and services.

Streamlining production processes

To enhance operational efficiency, the BBC is exploring the use of Gen AI tools to support journalists with tasks such as generating headline options and summarizing articles. Another area of focus is the improvement of content organization and labeling to facilitate quicker content creation, such as compiling clips or collections from existing programs.

The BBC reiterated its commitment to using Gen AI responsibly in an article, guided by principles that ensure the technology supports the corporation’s public mission while prioritizing human talent and creativity. Updated Editorial Guidance on AI use has been introduced for content creators, emphasizing the importance of maintaining audience trust and ensuring active human oversight in all AI-related endeavors.

As the BBC continues to experiment with Gen AI, it promises regular updates on its findings and decisions on future implementations.

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ITV is also trialing AI, with CEO Carolyn McCall acknowledging the technology’s potential benefits and challenges.

“Generative AI tools offer a significant opportunity and we are already trialing AI use cases across post-production to support and amplify creativity and also to improve efficiency,” she noted to The Hollywood Reporter in fall 2023.