AI news videos perform better with a human touch, finds study

Only AI-generated news videos which have been post-edited by humans are as well liked news videos created by journalists, according to a new study led by Dr Neil Thurman of City, University of London. The research found that, by contrast, viewers liked videos that were entirely automated and reliant on AI significantly less than manually made ones.

News organisations—including Bloomberg, Reuters, and The Economist—have been using AI-powered video services to meet growing audience demand for audio-visual material. Now, new research shows that the automated production of news videos is better with human supervision.

Technology providers like Wochit and Moovly are allowing publishers to mass produce videos at scale. But what do audiences think of the results? Researchers from the UK, Germany, and the US have found that only automated videos which have been post-edited by humans were as well liked as fully human-made videos.

Dr Thurman is a Senior Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Journalism at City. He said:

Our research shows that, on average, news consumers liked short-form, automated news videos as much as manually made ones, as long as the automation process involved human supervision.

One key takeaway of the study is that video automation output may be best when it comes in a hybrid form, meaning a human-machine collaboration.

Such hybridity involves more human supervision, ensuring that automated video production maintains quality standards while taking advantage of computers’ strengths, such as speed and scale.