Experts discussed how platform algorithms and smart feeds are reshaping the journey content takes to reach readers during a session titled The Age of Total Digital: Distribution, Algorithms, and Generative AI in the Newsroom, organized with the Kommersant Publishing House.
Participants also examined the role of artificial intelligence in news production – and how media websites are faring against competition from Telegram channels, algorithmic platforms, and neural networks.
“Our audience still wants a human touch. In journalism, that means plain, straightforward language. Many business publications – in Russia and elsewhere – face a real challenge here, because they struggle to explain complex things in simple terms,” noted Alexander Pavlov, Head of Online Operations at Kommersant Publishing House.
He also reported that leading news portals and Western media outlets have lost between 33 percent and 38 percent of their organic search traffic since Google began serving AI-generated answers in Search.
“Everyone thought AI would save us – that we’d step in, automate every process, and everything would be wonderful. At the same time, people started saying AI would replace humans, and some even saw it as a threat to human well-being,” he said.
Pavlov stressed, however, that artificial intelligence cannot replace a human being – least of all a journalist. For Kommersant, AI is above all a tool that makes content production easier. But a human remains at the final stage, deciding the fate of the story. Mikhail Slivinsky, an ambassador for online platforms at Yandex Search, agreed: AI is an assistant, and the final decision rests with a person.
“I believe technology is there to help us. But I don’t think we’ve reached the point where humans are effectively sidelined. These new tools empower us – they help us move forward faster,” Slivinsky concluded.
