Broadcasters Urged to Adopt AI; LeGeyt Calls for Trust in Elections

an AI-powered humanoid robot interjecting occasional quips. A Futuri study shows that audiences believe AI could improve news reporting as long as broadcasters clearly disclose when it's being used. Calling AI a “media revolution,” Anstandig urged broadcasters to be the first to “step up to the ledge and jump off.” Broadcasting “will rise and fall based on the people in this room,” he said. Anstandig discussed using AI voices to handle routine sponsorship reads or to serve as late-night DJs, and said that audiences are largely unable to distinguish AI audio from real voices. Futuri’s audience survey found that AI video avatars were “not ready for prime time,” but AI could also be used to help newsrooms decide what topics to cover, do sales research and take over routine tasks to allow more resources to be devoted to reporting. Asked by NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt about AI leading to employees being replaced, Anstandig said that “job rotation” is normal in industry, arguing that the invention of the calculator didn’t wipe out the profession of mathematician but instead led to the discipline of data science. “New jobs will be created,” he said. In a Q&A session preceding the AI segment, LeGeyt said that the resource constraints imposed on broadcasters by regulation and competition with tech companies disadvantage local journalism. “The practical reality of Washington’s inaction on these issues is that every day a local reporter’s ability” to tell local stories “is undermined,” he said. LeGeyt pledged onstage that NAB would serve as a “convener” to push greater awareness and action on the U.S. opioid crisis and called on broadcasters to “step up” to preserve American faith in electoral processes. “We would have different prognostications on what November looks like, but we all need to trust that what happens is the outcome that was warranted,” he said. LeGeyt said November’s presidential election is “the most consequential of our lifetimes.”