ABC Australia will trial using AI for journalism

ABC Australia will trial using Anthropic's Claude AI to convert radio programs into articles, aiming to free up staff for investigative work. The broadcaster will hire AI specialists to support adoption, despite public distrust of AI in Australia.

Earlier today, the ABC flagged a shift in their position on generative artificial intelligence https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-06/abc-new-ai-policies/106844364 AI use in their news production. Despite previous caution, a recent deal with US tech company Anthropic has opened the door for ABC staff to bring Claude AI into their broadcasting news work. For now, the scope of this inclusion is limited, with a focus on converting radio programs into articles. However, the ABC has signalled a willingness to expand this scope to include other tasks. The broadcaster will also hire specialists to help with AI adoption. The goal is to free up time for staff to engage in other core journalistic work, such as investigations, while also expanding the ABC’s production capabilities. Australians have a distinctive distrust of AI tools https://kpmg.com/au/en/insights/artificial-intelligence-ai/trust-in-ai-global-insights-2025.html , so it remains to be seen how the public will react to this change. On the other hand, the decision tracks with a long history of editors and journalists being early adopters of tech innovations. Journalists already use various data tools. And it’s possible to use generative AI to augment journalistic work in valuable and unprecedented ways. However, this comes at a time when journalism faces crises of sustainability for journalists and news – problems AI can as easily exacerbate as remedy. The original tech-heads? Journalists and news producers https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884919829277 have long had not only a vested interest in innovations that might improve their busy workflows, but also a broad curiosity about the cutting edge of tools and technologies. Generative AI in chatbot form has only made headlines in the past three years. But journalists have saved time by using automated systems and “ robo-writing https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1289819 ” to convert data into simple news stories for over a decade. In one 2016 study https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884916641269 , readers even rated computer-written articles as “more credible and higher in journalistic expertise”. Nevertheless, with rampant tech adoption also come concerns https://jacobin.com/2021/10/journalism-metrics-news-management-profit-clicks-gawker-analytics that some innovations are more disruptive than beneficial. For example, social media and analytics introduced the almighty algorithm https://niemanreports.org/news-influencers-content-creators-social-media-journalism/ as an unwelcome additional editor to journalists’ work, undermining their autonomy https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884917720305 . Generative AI introduces a new threat that raises existential concerns for the sustainability of news. Disrupting and displacing journalism Journalists are more worried about generative AI https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2024.2389209 than they were with other automated tools in the past – because chatbots can seemingly write just like a human can. In response, they’ve been emphasising their indispensable role as gatekeepers who convey news to the public. So if organisations choose to use AI to help produce journalism, a key question https://doi.org/10.1177/27523543241291229 is how to handle ethics and concerns over quality. Time-poor professionals in fields from law https://doi.org/10.1093/jla/laae003 to medicine https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-026-14851-1 have found themselves burned when their generative AI went off-script and crafted plausible fictions. This potentially raises a bigger threat for journalists. The profession is already facing a crisis of public mistrust, including in Australia https://www.edelman.com/au/trust/2025/trust-barometer . Relying on AI for content generation opens the door to missteps that news producers like the ABC can ill afford. But these risks can be mitigated if newsrooms dedicate additional effort to verifying and curating the AI content https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2019.1630289 . This makes journalists’ roles as gatekeepers more important than ever. Yet it also relies on audiences having a relationship with journalists and appreciating their judgement and analysis in the first place. These efforts represent a new kind of work https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2026.2682272 , one that shifts the lens away from the forms of production that have long been central to journalism. A space of opportunities Conversely, the latest AI tools do offer journalists new ways to augment their work. The large language models and other AI tools the public uses to generate office emails or funny cat pictures have been used by journalists globally to engage in unprecedented investigations and news production. BBC’s in-depth coverage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BigN9awZC5M&t=469s of Russia’s presence in Ukraine leveraged AI to dig through troves of text and video https://www.journalists.org/news/case-study-using-ai-to-analyze-open-source-intelligence-in-ukraine-war-reporting . This provided insights that would have been impractical or impossible to achieve through manual methods. Global South news producers https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-95-2341-2 12 have used AI to overcome endemic resourcing challenges. They’ve been able to repurpose and translate content, extending the capacities of already stretched news reporters. Generative AI can save time. Using AI tools for routine news production can make room for journalists to improve their relationships with audiences, focus on quality, and make a stronger case for journalism’s distinctive value https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241269300 . Displacing journalists or displacing journalism? These changes at the ABC are coming at a time when funding and resources for journalism are becoming increasingly scarce. The business models that have long underpinned our media system were rendered unsustainable by big tech https://theconversation.com/the-old-news-business-model-is-broken-making-google-and-facebook-pay-wont-save-journalism-150357 , while Australian news organisations are having to compete with overabundant online media from across the world. AI tools bring potential for further displacement. AI summaries served by search engines https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-08/how-googles-ai-overviews-are-affecting-australian-news-websites/105839588 summarise news content instead of directing online traffic to the original news source. Additionally, AI-generated news obscures Australian media outlets https://doi.org/10.1386/ajr 00183 1 or redirects users to larger international news organisations – particularly those in the US. Newsrooms are weighing their options on how to best use AI even as they strategise how to compete with it as a source for news. The ABC’s goals for using AI in their news work fits a long-established historical trend toward keeping journalism on the cutting edge of what technological innovations can offer. The efficiency gains and expanded capabilities for journalism are real, and audiences can appreciate its outputs even as they distrust the technology itself. The question remains whether the ABC can channel AI into benefits for the public in a way that does not sacrifice their commitment to news quality or the public’s esteem for the public broadcaster.