Empowered by AI, mainstream media is catalyzing a new quality of productive capacity.
Shanghai, the undisputed AI leader in China, has hosted the World Artificial Intelligence Conference for seven consecutive years since 2018. During these seven years, global artificial intelligence has evolved from 1.0 to 2.0, transitioning from the victory of AlphaGo over Go champion Ke Jie to generative large models, and from specialists in specific tasks to masters of general tasks. Over this period, the scale of the AI industry in Shanghai has expanded from 134 billion yuan to 380 billion yuan. Currently, Shanghai boasts about 250,000 AI professionals, accounting for one-third of the nation’s total.
As one of the three pillar industries in Shanghai, the AI sector profoundly influences the local media industry. Recently, Guanmei Media Observations collaborated with Fanwen Big Data to conduct a word frequency analysis of headlines in national party newspapers. Data shows that as of December 15, this year, the terms “artificial intelligence” and “AI” appeared most frequently in the front pages of the Liberation Daily, Beijing Daily, and Sichuan Daily. Specifically, the Liberation Daily led with 1,117 occurrences, making it the only provincial party newspaper to surpass the thousand mark.
AI is not only frequently featured on the front pages of party newspapers but has also deeply integrated into various stages of mainstream media content creation and dissemination. With approval from the Publicity Department of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Shanghai Newspaper Group announced the launch of a new round of reforms on November 11. According to the “Shanghai Newspaper Group’s Comprehensive Systematic Reform Work Plan,” the group will embrace technological change, promote the digital and intelligent development of media, and reshape production mechanisms from all dimensions, thus creating innovative and leading mainstream media productivity. Currently, the group is developing an AI super platform that will facilitate the deep application of AI technology in editorial processes, as well as comprehensive support for creative planning, content production, distribution, data analysis, and business operations. The group’s AI digital human media creation platform is also continuously upgrading to establish an XR creative studio, providing concentrated support, high-quality technical training, and applications across various domains.
In the past year, the Shanghai Newspaper Group has seized the significant opportunities presented by AI empowerment, achieving numerous breakthroughs in practical AI applications in media. The group’s virtual media studio features over 300 three-dimensional virtual scenes, resulting in more than 400 scene transformations. By leveraging the AI digital human IP matrix, the group is actively promoting AI integration across all aspects of content production. The group encourages and supports editors and reporters in using new AI technologies in major media reports, fostering cognitive evolution and skill enhancement among the staff.
At the Media Innovation and Development Conference held by the Shanghai Newspaper Group on October 12, Li Yun, the group’s party committee secretary and president, introduced three key focus areas enabled by AI and new technologies: supporting rapid production of mass content, utilizing digital humans to create stand-ins for regular tasks, and injecting momentum into operational innovation through developing large models, thereby achieving a new quality of productivity.
Today, the 2024 China Newspaper and Media Industry AI Application Conference, hosted by the China Journalists Association and the Shanghai Newspaper Group, is taking place in Shanghai. This edition highlights vivid case studies of how the Shanghai Newspaper Group harnesses AI to stimulate new levels of productivity among various media, aiming for mutual learning and exchange, exploring deeper avenues, and generating greater reform momentum to accelerate systemic changes in media.
The Liberation Daily wields a “News Magic Pen” to produce high-quality content through human-machine collaboration. The Liberation Daily has collaborated actively with universities and enterprises, utilizing the open-source “Shusheng: Puy language” large model 2.0 and a comprehensive array of open-source toolkits from the Shanghai AI Lab to develop an AIGC (generative artificial intelligence) application system called “News Magic Pen,” which enables automatic generation of news content starting from the perception of hot events. This system now operational on the Liberation Daily’s integrated media platform covers the entire news creation process, including news planning, information collection, content writing, and report publication.
When users open this application, they first see a list of trending news stories, analyzed based on recent mainstream media reports. Upon selecting a hot topic, the “News Magic Pen” automatically generates a reporting angle and matches it with the “Liberation Daily Party Newspaper Perspective Database,” producing news content in the style of the Liberation Daily based on the large model.
The “News Magic Pen” has been integrated into the AI super platform managed by the Shanghai Newspaper Group, enhancing various media and units under the group. In the first “Puyuan Large Model Series Challenge” held in 2024, which included 122 global teams, the “News Magic Pen” application won second prize, making the Liberation Daily the only awarded media unit in the competition.
As the application of the “News Magic Pen” large model matures, will there be job losses for reporters and editors? Current levels of AIGC-generated content indicate that large models are suitable only for rapid production of news reports, while high-quality news production still depends on reporters and editors. The more accurate role of the “News Magic Pen” is to serve as a valuable assistant to journalists, significantly boosting both the efficiency and quantity of news content production while further enhancing the quality through human-machine collaboration.
The Shanghai Newspaper Group’s AI digital human media creation platform provides strong technical guidance for supply-side innovation. On September 2, at the third China Newspaper Innovation Development Conference, the AI digital human media creation platform from the Shanghai Newspaper Group was recognized as an innovative case in digital technology applications for deep integration development in the Chinese newspaper industry.
Starting from the second half of 2023, the Shanghai Newspaper Group has been focusing on creating the “Shanghai Newspaper Group AI Digital Human Media Creation Platform.” Over the past year, this platform has provided robust technological leadership for various media, including the Liberation Daily, Wen Hui Bao, Xin Min Evening News, The Paper, and Interface Finance as they explore innovations in content supply.
The platform has established an initial IP matrix consisting of 70 AI digital humans, covering areas such as current affairs, public welfare, culture, and technology to conduct hot news reporting. Among various media, these digital humans serve as popular hosts in columns such as online rumor debunking, weather reporting, financial news, and sports updates. The platform has developed Olympic-themed digital humans for Xin Min Evening News, The Paper, and Dongfang Sports Daily, integrating them with scenes from Paris to deliver high-quality, dynamic presentations, resulting in around 80 million total plays across relevant short videos.
Currently, “silicon-based humans” are significantly contributing to the media integration process, forming a new paradigm for content production at the Shanghai Newspaper Group. In the group’s multimedia studio video productions, AI digital humans undertake various roles. For instance, in the Liberation Daily’s finance channel’s “Understanding Economics Studio,” multiple reporters transform into digital humans to discuss various finance topics. The digital human “Dabai” from the Shanghai network rumor debunking platform presents insightful information in video format. The digital human “Fan Xiaotu” in the “Art Review Studio” provides in-depth artistic explanations, while “Dan Dan” interacts with audiences in the segment “AI Dan Dan Watches the Weather.” Additionally, digital human anchors are utilized in various columns such as “Bull Market Daily,” “Personnel Time,” and “Sports Overview,” achieving an impressive reach of 568 million. These digital humans maintain consistent, reliable operations, ready to engage at any time during holidays or emergencies, allowing journalists and editors to free themselves from repetitive daily tasks and focus on more creative content planning.
The AI digital human media creation platform features multiple API interfaces, allowing the integration of products from different technological companies, including Tencent, Volcano, and Silicon-based digital human products. With the platform’s empowerment and technological leadership, various media organizations have achieved large-scale production and high-quality supply of content. For example, the Shanghai branch of the Chinese Communist Party’s life sector developed a cartoon digital human named “Zhifeng Learning,” automatically transitioning from cartoon images to dynamic videos, which were showcased on the Xiaohongshu account “Zhifeng Learning” to assist in youth engagement for party work. In the financial news sector, the digital humans “Xiaoni” and “Yaya” have been consistent features in the “Morning Pa” and “Goodnight Pa” segments, having reported for over 400 days with various viral hits, such as “What Key Information Is Revealed About the Fujian Ship on News Broadcasts,” which garnered approximately 2.1 million reads. The AI digital human “Yaoyao” from the finance and economics sections has also undergone continuous upgrades on the platform, evolving from seated news delivery to reporting while walking, covering events all the way to the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, with video views exceeding one million.
In a tribute to the legacy of Ba Jin, an AI video was released on November 25 to commemorate his 120th birthday, employing AI video technology to rejuvenate Ba Jin’s presence amid the waves of modern technology on various social media platforms. This AI video creatively transformed photos of Ba Jin into dynamic, story-rich scenes that chronicle his life from youth to old age, allowing audiences to step through a time tunnel and immerse themselves in his profound literary journey.
Under the strong advocacy of the Shanghai Newspaper Group for applying AI technology in media work, Wen Hui Bao actively responds by delving into innovations utilizing AI. The cultural department at Wen Hui Bao initially collected and selected old photographs of Ba Jin and eventually settled on 24 images. These photographs underwent key steps of AI restoration and generation into “living” AI videos. Young editors from the cultural department employed tools like Stable Diffusion for photo restoration and colorization, then explored various applications to achieve video through image. In some scenarios, commands given to the AI by humans required creative design, such as in a photo of Ba Jin with his granddaughter, originally depicting her holding him. The resulting AI video creatively presented her kissing Ba Jin’s cheek, achieving an ideal visual effect.
The release of the AI video celebrating
