A start-up is developing a news service presented by anchors created by artificial intelligence.
By Chris Stokel-Walker
Journalist, Author, Lecturer
For 22 minutes, a variety of polished news anchors stand in front of the camera and run down the day’s news in a video posted on social media. But none of them are real. Instead, the anchors are generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
The video is produced by Los Angeles-based Channel 1, a start-up created by entrepreneurs Adam Mosam and Scott Zabielski, who plan to roll out AI-generated news on a streaming TV channel later this year. “There seemed to be a very interesting opportunity to level up the user experience of news,” says Mosam, by using AI to tailor content to individuals.
AI technology can also help translate scripts and interviews from one language to another – capabilities that Channel 1 demonstrated in a promotional video, which was shared in December.
Channel 1 is the latest demonstration of AI-powered news presenters around the world. In Kuwait, an AI persona by the name of Fedha ran through the headlines for Kuwait News. Hermes presented the news in May 2023 for Greek state broadcaster ERT. South Korean broadcaster SBS handed over the duties of news presenting to Zae-In, an AI-generated deepfake, for five months this year. There are others in India and Taiwan, too – all created by AI.
But there’s one key question still to be answered: will viewers trust news delivered by AI, rather than humans?
