idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
idw - Informationsdienst
Wissenschaft
A vast majority of media professionals in Switzerland use AI tools in their day-to-day work but do so mostly to support their tasks rather than produce content, according to a study by the University of Zurich. They are rather ambivalent in their assessment of the impact of AI tools on media quality, and they are in favor of introducing industry-wide standards and strengthening cooperation in the area of IT infrastructure to reduce the sector’s dependency on tech platforms.
The rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence is changing the way news is being produced. But how does this affect journalism? The Research Center for the Public Sphere and Society (fög) at the University of Zurich (UZH) has now conducted the first-ever comprehensive study on the use and impact of AI on journalism in Switzerland. The study is based on an online survey of 730 media professionals across the country’s three major language regions.
Most media professionals use AI tools
The study shows that AI tools have become an established part of the media industry. A majority of media professionals (87%) use these tools in their everyday work, with some even relying on them heavily (17%). In contrast, a noteworthy proportion of respondents stated they rarely (18%) or never (13%) make use of AI tools. Younger media professionals and people who are part of larger editorial teams use AI more often than their older peers or members of small teams.
Just under two-thirds (63%) of Swiss journalists consider AI to be useful for their work. “AI tools are used predominantly in a supportive capacity, for example to transcribe, improve texts, or come up with ideas for titles,” says study leader Silke Fürst. The use of generative AI to produce content, be it texts, images, or videos, hardly figures in the media professionals’ daily work, according to Fürst, a research associate at fög.
Mixed feelings about impact on quality
Opinions as to how the use of AI tools is affecting the quality of media content are divided. Around one-third of respondents believe that the quality of their reporting has improved as a result of using AI. However, a slightly larger share of respondents (38%) stated that they saw no or hardly any improvement. Moreover, some media professionals said that they did not have enough time to carefully check information generated with AI (18%) or complement this information with their own sources (24%).
A majority of respondents said that their editorial team had no systematic quality assurance measures when using AI, or that they were not aware of their existence. Some respondents (15%) reported that the use of AI in their newsroom had resulted in errors. “Unsurprisingly, four out of five media professionals believe that AI in journalism raises many ethical questions,” says Fürst.
AI guidelines not sufficiently known
Over the past few years, many media companies and the industry as a whole have introduced guidelines for using AI. Almost half of respondents consider the guidelines issued by their own company or editorial office to be useful, but just under one-third are unaware of their existence. Significantly fewer respondents consider industry-wide guidelines to be useful, and even fewer media professionals know them. Nevertheless, more than 80% think that industry-wide standards are needed on how to label AI in news reporting. This would make it easier for users to understand the use of AI.
Problematic dependency on tech companies
As among the Swiss population in general, media professionals take a clearly skeptical view of the impact of AI on the media industry as a whole. “61% of media professionals assume that the use of AI in Swiss journalism encourages the spread of misinformation, 68% expect content to become more uniform, and 70% fear that AI could undermine the public’s trust in the media,” says Silke Fürst.
In addition, many journalists have observed a growing dependence on tech companies (75%) and are calling for collaborations to develop their own AI tools (46%). This would lower costs for the individual media companies, make it easier to meet the specific needs of Swiss editorial teams, and reduce the imbalance between large and smaller editorial offices.
The study on Swiss media professionals’ views on the use of AI in journalism is available (in German) on www.foeg.uzh.ch.
Funding, partners, and support
The study was supported by the Digitalization Initiative of the Zurich Higher Education Institutions (DIZH). The following partners are involved in the project: Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), University of Fribourg, University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons, IAM Institute of Applied Media Studies at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), “Junge Journalistinnen und Journalisten Schweiz” (JJS, association of young journalists in Switzerland), “Qualität im Journalismus” (QuaJou, association for quality in journalism) and “Schweizer Syndikat Medienschaffender” (SSM, Swiss union of media professionals). The study was also supported by other media associations and organisations. Further information about the project is available on the DIZH website.
Dr. Silke Fürst
Research Center for the Public Sphere and Society (fög)
University of Zurich
+41 44 635 20 74
silke.fuerst@uzh.ch
Silke Fürst et al. Jahrbuch Qualität der Medien Studie 3/2025: Einsatz und Auswirkungen von Künstlicher Intelligenz im Journalismus – Befunde einer schweizweiten Befragung von Medienschaffenden. Forschungszentrum Öffentlichkeit und Gesellschaft (fög) der Universität Zürich (UZH)
https://www.news.uzh.ch/en/articles/media/2025/AI-journalism.html
Einsatz und Auswirkungen von Künstlicher Intelligenz im Journalismus – Befunde einer schweizweiten ...
Copyright: fög, UZH
Criteria of this press release:
Journalists, Scientists and scholars
Media and communication sciences
transregional, national
Research results, Scientific Publications
English
You can combine search terms with and, or and/or not, e.g. Philo not logy.
You can use brackets to separate combinations from each other, e.g. (Philo not logy) or (Psycho and logy).
Coherent groups of words will be located as complete phrases if you put them into quotation marks, e.g. “Federal Republic of Germany”.
You can also use the advanced search without entering search terms. It will then follow the criteria you have selected (e.g. country or subject area).
If you have not selected any criteria in a given category, the entire category will be searched (e.g. all subject areas or all countries).
