Reuters Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni says the news agency is already using AI to draft headlines and opening paragraphs, translate copy and distill information from press releases — offering one of the clearest examples yet of how generative AI is reshaping newsroom workflows.
Speaking after delivering the Andrew Olle Media Lecture at Australia’s ABC on July 23, Galloni told the Australian media industry news website Mumbrella that Reuters has incorporated AI into routine production tasks while keeping reporting and editorial judgement in human hands. She argued that offloading grunt work to AI doesn’t strip young journalists of a way in. It just changes what the entry point looks like.
Three decades ago, Galloni said, junior reporters spent much of their time on administrative tasks that AI can now automate. Today’s newcomers, she argued, are instead building skills in data journalism, visual verification, camera work and drone operation.
“There are many things that you can do that didn’t exist 30 years ago, like going into the visual verification team or the fact-checking team of a news organization,” she said.
Her broader point was that the core of the profession remains unchanged. Rather than spending their first years on repetitive production work, Galloni said young reporters should focus on finding stories, interviewing people and developing reporting instincts.
“The best thing that young journalists can train on is going out and finding news and talking to people,” she said. In her view, AI is simply another tool modern reporters need to learn, alongside a growing set of digital reporting skills.
For newsrooms watching their entry-level pipeline shrink alongside AI adoption, Galloni’s comments are a rare instance of a wire service leader naming the tradeoff directly rather than dodging it. Reuters isn’t hiding that AI is contributing to the drafting and translation work once assigned to junior staff. The bet is that those time savings are redirected into reporting, verification and technical skills AI can’t replicate.
Whether that bet pays off depends less on the technology than on newsroom investment. Automating routine work only builds better journalists if editors reinvest that freed time into mentorship and field reporting, rather than treating it as a headcount reduction.
