AI, Strategy and Public Media - ARD and NPO

Innovating responsibly: insights from the PSM AI Strategies Group

The EBU’s PSM AI Strategies Group met on 23 May to share updates, challenges, and ideas on the use of AI in broadcasting. The session offered a rich glimpse of how public service media are integrating AI into their operations while managing ethical, environmental, and strategic concerns.

A key piece of the discussion was the growing environmental impact of AI technologies. Participants highlighted how AI models now account for up to 20% of global data centre energy use, raising big, unanswered questions about sustainability. 

Some Members, such as RTBF and NPO, are advocating for greater transparency from general-purpose AI providers on resource usage, including energy and water consumption. They argue that these disclosures are essential to support responsible procurement and integration decisions.

Members also explored challenges posed by legacy systems and how these affect the balance between in-house innovation and the purchase of commercial AI solutions. The need to modernise infrastructure without compromising public values was another theme, as was web crawler access to public content. 

Several broadcasters, including SRG SSR and Yle, are exploring how to block or regulate crawler access, while ARD is building a ‘public service AI ecosystem’ to ensure its content is presented accurately and respectfully on third-party AI platforms. These efforts aim to strike a balance between protecting IP and securing visibility.

Collaborative tools and experiments also came under the spotlight, including EBU’s Neo, which powers Swedish Radio’s AI news chatbot, as promising examples of AI-powered editorial tools tailored to PSM needs. 

The meeting concluded with universal acceptance of the criticality of responsible innovation, where creativity, ethics, and sustainability remain centre stage during public service media’s AI journey.

Speakers: Uli Köppen, ARD’s Chief AI Officer, and Ezra Eeman, NPO’s Director of Strategy & Innovation.

Hosts: Justin Kings, Head of EBU Academy, Madiana Asseraf, Head of Corporate & Strategic Initiatives

The AI, Strategy and Public Media series is a collaboration between EBU Academy School of AI and the PSM Strategies Group within the EBU.

You may also be interested in watching our sister series, AI, Ethics and Public Media, highlighting the work of:

• Deutsche Welle with Ruth Kühn, Chief AI Officer, Technology
• Yle with Minna Mustakallio, Head of Responsible AI
• BBC with James Fletcher, Team Lead for Responsible AI & Data
• Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) with Uli Köppen, Chief AI Officer