The adoption of artificial intelligence in Brazilian newsrooms has focused mainly on increasing productivity, being used for tasks like transcription and automatic translation that facilitate the daily work of journalists. However, the technology has still provided little inspiration for the creation of new journalistic products, with limited examples in this regard. Furthermore, media outlets are increasingly vulnerable to the exploitation of their data by large technology platforms, which use this content to train their systems and often redirect traffic, damaging the relevance of newspapers in the fight for public attention.
These are among the main conclusions of the report “Journalisms and Artificial Intelligence – Impact on Brazilian publishers”, the first publication by Momentum – Journalism and Tech Task Force, a new Brazilian think tank dedicated to thinking about the intersections between the press, technology and public policies in the so-called Global South. With versions in Portuguese, English and Spanish, the report was released in November and was supported by the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM).
Cover of the report Journalisms and Artificial Intelligence – Impact on Brazilian publishers, the first publication by Momentum – Journalism & Tech Task Force
The study is based on interviews with representatives of 13 companies and journalistic associations, including both smaller and independent outlets, such as Agência Pública and fact-checking agency Aos Fatos, as well as several of the country's large media outlets, like newspapers Folha de S.Paulo, O Estado de S.Paulo and O Globo.
The main conclusion of the study is that “the impact of AI on Brazilian journalism presents significant challenges, linked to the dependence on Big Techs and the difficulty in determining and negotiating the values attributed to journalistic content. At the same time, AI is perceived as an opportunity, which can bring, among other things, increased productivity.”
The founder and executive director of Momentum is Paula Miraglia, who co-founded Gama Revista and the online newspaper Nexo. She said the new initiative arose from the understanding of the central role that technology has played in journalism in the last 15 to 20 years, especially in Brazil, where the emergence of digital native outlets helped to democratize access to information in a historically concentrated market. At the same time, technology platforms have created other types of dependencies, she said.
"It became clear how technology can be an element of democratization of access to information, how it can change the configurations of the media ecosystem,” Miraglia told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). “But little by little, we understood other aspects of this relationship with technology. One of the aspects is what I call a structural dependence of journalism on technology platforms. For example, they are the great mediators between those who produce journalism and their audience.”
Journalist and academic Daniel Buarque, who led the study, said the research only took around two months to prepare, as they intended to obtain a sample of the current situation of AI adoption by Brazilian newsrooms, in a scenario that is changing rapidly. The interviews, which were anonymized in the study, found that the use of AI to improve and speed up the work of journalists has been consolidated.
“Tools such as automatic translation, automatic transcription, headline suggestions, suggestions of approach and structuring newsletters are incorporated to increase productivity,” Buarque told LJR. “I don’t know anyone else who doesn’t use Pinpoint or something similar,” he added, referring to Google’s automatic transcription tool.
On the other hand, although there are initiatives that explore the use of AI for product development, this remains incipient. Buarque cites several potential uses: tools that convert reports into audio or video, interactive chats with readers, personalization of content, adaptation of news for specific audiences, like a tool that transforms reports into versions for children, among others.
“Some outlets are moving a little further in this direction, seeking to incorporate AI as part of the company culture, but, in general, what has been consolidated is the use aimed at increased productivity,” Buarque said.
The two biggest risks cited, according to the research, are the possible replacement of journalists by automation, and the use of journalistic data without remuneration by large AI systems. Regarding the possible replacement, interviewees gave reassuring information to concerned reporters and editors.
“All the publishers we interviewed say they want to protect journalists, they say they don’t want to replace them. The discourse, at least, is against replacement,” Buarque said.
The other main concern cited by publishers, according to the research, is the fact that large AI models, such as ChatGPT, Claude.ai and Gemini, use journalistic data to train their systems without authorization. Furthermore, the sector fears that AI platforms will start to act as intermediaries between content and readers, weakening traditional media outlets – instead of directly accessing press outlets, the public may start consuming information directly on AI platforms, reducing traffic to journalistic websites and undermining their revenue.
To make this scenario worse, the report finds a great asymmetry of power between digital platforms and the media. To counter this, Paula Miraglia proposes a two-pronged approach. The first thing that Momentum's executive director advocates is for the media to coordinate with each other, so that they can negotiate collectively. She cites Denmark as an example.
“A joint position would completely change this scenario,” Miraglia said. “That’s what we’re seeing happen in Denmark. There, absolutely all publishers, small and large, came together and said, ‘no one is going to negotiate individually.’”
This broad front could assign value to its content before sitting at the table with companies, which would increase its bargaining power.
“This does not mean that the assigned value would be immediately accepted by companies, but it would at least mean media companies arrive at the negotiating table in a better position,” Miraglia said. “Not simply as someone who is there to accept an agreement that has been proposed by companies.”
As for the possible disruptions of technology, Miraglia compares it to the advent of digital.
“The media industry never fully recovered from this, it never managed to equalize, to actually reach this reality. You have outlets that are still talking about making the transition to digital,” she said. “So this is another step in a process that has been going on for a long time.”
Something that the report does not analyze and that could motivate other studies, Miraglia said, is users' behavior in relation to technology.
Momentum's study on Brazil motivated at least one similar initiative in the region: the Association of Argentine Journalistic Entities (Adepa, for its initials in Spanish) is currently conducting an investigation inspired by its Brazilian colleagues, also with support from IFPIM.
According to Agustina Ordoñez, a member of Adepa who is involved in the project, among the initial results, there are signs of varying levels of incorporation of AI among Argentine outlets, with some making intense use of the technology, and others few.
In the medium term, the initiatives can serve as references for the regulation of both the AI sector and technology platforms in the two countries. As for the latter, the discussion in this regard was hot in Brazil about two years ago, but has since cooled down. Considering the alignment of Big Tech with the Donald Trump government, which implies the impossibility of this agenda advancing on U.S. soil, the countries of the South can set an example, Miraglia said.
“The Brazilian government can signal that it has a commitment so that, in an emerging economy like Brazil, technology is in tune with the public interest,” she said. “And I’m not just talking about journalism, but about the development of technologies that have the public interest as their horizon.”
