Overview and analysis of the AI Launchpad Programme 2024

FT Strategies, supported by the Google News Initiative, is pleased to share learnings from the second, expanded AI Launchpad programme of 2024. This report focuses on how publishers are evolving their AI experimentation and moving beyond internal newsroom tools to develop live, reader-facing products powered by generative AI.

The programme ran from June to November 2024 and supported 16 publishers from across the EMEA region. These publishers explored how tools such as chatbots and content discovery agents could help users find, understand, and interact with journalism in new ways.

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In this report, you will find:

  • Key insights from real-world experiments with chatbots, on-site search, and polling agents
  • Common success factors for building AI tools that align with audience needs and newsroom values
  • A practical summary of technical, editorial and organisational lessons learned during the process of launching audience-facing AI features
  • Case studies from the publishers who participated in the programme

We are grateful to the publishers who took part courtesy of our partnership with the Google News Initiative:

  • Al-Masry Al-Youm (Egypt) 
  • Daily Maverick (South Africa) 
  • De Tijd, Mediafin  (Belgium) 
  • DigiSport (Romania)
  • Expresso, Impresa (Portugal)
  • Fanpage.it, Ciao People (Italy) 
  • Il Resto del Carlino (Italy)
  • Il Sole 24 Ore (Italy)
  • Index (Indamedia) (Hungary)
  • InYourArea (Reach) (UK)
  • ItaliaOnline (Italy)
  • Ruhr Nachrichten, Lensing Media (Germany) 
  • Tagesspiegel (Germany)
  • ProtoThema (Greece) 
  • Punch (Nigeria)

We would also like to thank the software vendors who took part in the programme, either to support publisher experimentation or to demonstrate the capabilities of AI tools (BridgedMedia , Dataminr, Flaredata, InsurAds, Miso.ai, Pixels.AI, Podcastle, Smartocto, Viafoura).

We look forward to discussing the findings of the report with the wider industry in the coming months. You can learn more about the programmes that we run in partnership with Google News Initiative here.