Bospar’s ‘Press Play’ webinar in October explores public’s conflicting views as AI reshapes future of journalism

SAN FRANCISCO – September 20, 2023 – Award-winning agency Bospar today announced that the second installment of its Press Play webinar series, publishing in October, will explore how the public — and top business and tech reporters — feel about Google’s AI feature which summarizes news of the day and other web articles.

Google’s recently introduced SGE while browsing feature uses AI to generate a bulleted list of key points from an article to make life easier in a short-attention-span world.

Moderated by Bospar’s tech guru and veteran CNBC and Bloomberg journalist Eric Chemi, the webinar’s featured speakers include VentureBeat senior writer and editor Sharon Goldman, who is on the enterprise AI news beat, and MarketWatch senior reporter Jon Swartz, who covers many of the biggest players in tech, including Facebook, Google and Netflix.

Chemi will use Bospar Press Play’s new survey — which polled the public and top reporters about Google’s AI-powered news and information summaries — as a springboard for discussing how AI is changing journalism. Topics discussed may include how generative AI and other AI news impact content creators, the quest to create high-quality content, AI hallucinations, landing page content, search queries and the future of journalism.

This latest Press Play survey shows a public with conflicting views on how Google’s AI-powered journalism will impact journalism as we’ve known it and whether the impact will have long-lasting negative or positive effects. For example, while a solid majority (63%) believe Google’s AI-based news summaries will have a positive impact on journalism, more than half (56%) acknowledge that they worry that the use of AI by search engines will undermine (53%) or have a negative impact (62%) on journalism.

Survey respondents welcome the time-saving element of Google’s new feature. More than 64% of respondents said Google’s use of AI to shorten lengthy articles from search results appeals to them, saving them time (70%), helping with their research (55%) and fostering quicker understanding of the positions of politicians (45%).

However, over half (53%) of respondents voiced concern that Google has too much control over the news people see. Nearly three-quarters (74%) said there should be a law against search engines taking content from online news sources and presenting that news as their own.

The survey also demonstrates a need to educate the public about AI. While 59% of respondents said that they trust Google’s new AI search capability provides accurate information, nearly three-fourths (74%) of the survey group said they have not heard of AI hallucinations, and 75% do not know what an AI hallucination is. 
For more highlights from the survey and details about the upcoming webinar, check out our blog.

Listen to the new Bospar Press Play webinar, available in October.

Access the inaugural webinar,“The 7 Deadly Sins of Thought Leadership,”  here.