Futures Lab

Panel discussion

Generative AI
experiments

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Futures Lab

About Schibsted

Schibsted is a family of over 60 brands.

Founded in 1839 as a publisher,
Schibsted now provides a range of
services in news media, marketplaces
and ventures, with more than 1 billion
monthly visits. Some of its most popular
brands include Finn.no, VG, Prisjakt, and
Lendo.

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Futures Lab → Our mission

Schibsted Futures Lab explores the potential

←important

effects of emerging technologies and trends on

Schibsted, its brands and its customers.

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Futures Lab → Our approach

Guided by trend research, foresight,

and scenarios, we use storytelling,
speculative design, and technological
prototyping to see, feel, and
experience future opportunities.

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Futures Lab
→ Our horizon
Futures are relative: we explore
and experiment with trends and
technologies beyond Schibsted’s
horizon.
o v e r
a t is iz o n?
W h s h or
ste d ’
Sch ib

What is

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Futures Lab → Our process
01 Signals & trends
Seeing patterns and trying to assess
the trajectory and timing of change.
We ask ourselves what is constant
and what uncertainties do we have.
02 Scenarios
We use axes to draft future
scenarios, which are stories about
plausible futures. Some of them are
favourable, others catastrophic.
Generative AI experiments
03 Speculative Product
Concepts
Scenarios pain a backdrop upon
which we can envision future
products. E.g. AI-driven weather or
news avatars.
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04 Experiments
In some cases, we build these out as
experiments to gain even more
insight into technical feasibility,
usability, and viability.
May 2023
05 Investments
💸
Decide what is worth investing in,
either through training, new
features, acquisitions, new
companies or further experiments.
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Process → 01 Signals & trends

A lot of different news articles, videos

and trends were pointing to
developments within the field of AI,
reporting, content generation, weather
forecasting,
and animation.

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Process → 01 Signals & trends

Automated versioning is the ability to

generate multiple versions of content
from similar inputs in rapid, affordable,
and highly differentiated forms.

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Process → Signal & trend research

→ We are building the capability to automatically generate content

for specific audiences - even individuals - in specific formats.
→ We are building the capability to translate content across
languages, media types, and devices.
→ Considering parallel trends, what could this mean for Schibsted?

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Futures Lab
In NEAR FUTURE, new AI-driven services are launched, providing tailored
information and services to the public. Regulation of the use and
transparency of AI tools is refined, and a skeptical public begins to rely on
these tools for increasingly essential information and functions both in their
professional and personal lives.
Critical Uncertainties
Devices - mobile devices are still dominant, though AR glasses are seeing strong adoption.
User needs - life is increasingly complex, and people need trustworthy, understandable technology to help them make sense of an
unpredictable world.
Platforms - social media is the dominant platform for sharing news and weather, and people increasingly rely on operating system
features and apps that deliver critical notifications about extreme weather and current events. Major tech companies continue to
pursue closed app ecosystems, centred around user devices and app markets.
Attitudes towards AI - while tools are more widespread and synthetic content is now standard in some industries, literacy and trust in
AI is very uneven, and limited to benign content like weather, traffic, and finance.
Journalism - trust in the media remains fractured, and fault lines deepen. At the same time, the public across the political spectrum
increasingly relies on data-driven reporting when it comes to increasingly unpredictable weather events.
Attitudes towards privacy - shakeups in major tech platforms and data leaks mean that access to user data is inconsistent, and depends
on which platforms and devices people use. Further, increasing regional differences in regulatory environments mean that products,
services, and experiences need to be either built for specific regions, or highly tailored to suit multiple regulatory systems in order to
maintain global relevance.
Generative AI experiments
Overview
The world is getting just a little more chaotic. Between the ongoing effects of climate change on weather patterns, continued political
upheaval around the globe, and economic and supply chain disruptions, it is getting harder to predict what tomorrow will look like.
Through this growing storm, corporations and governments alike have widely adopted AI and machine learning tools into their
analytical and decision making systems. Alongside early applications in industry, finance, and corporate decision making, generative AI
tools became increasingly common in marketing and creative industries. Virtual influencers paved the way for virtual celebrities and
actors, and the entertainment industry as a whole has seen a blurring of the lines between social media, film, and video games.
Starting with consumer protections and moving on to technology applications, refined regulations have allowed for continued
advancements in AI tools and generative media, while taking small but important steps to protect public privacy and fairness.
At the same time, growing literacy with AI and advancements in accessibility are putting these tools directly in consumers hands.
Starting in the workplace with tools to assist writing, scheduling, financial planning and data analysis, an initially skeptical public has
taken some meaningful steps toward applying AI technologies into their personal lives.
Consumer-facing AI tools that help people manage their energy consumption, finances, and optimise their daily lives have been
adopted by large portions of the upper middle classes. In some places, adoption is widespread because the tools have been built into
dominant consumer devices. Hyper-localised weather forecasts are standard, with location-specific UV, heat, and precipitation
warnings starting to save lives around the world.
Questions
→ Will widespread adoption in relatively benign areas like weather lead to increasing trust and broader application?
→ What kinds of market and political segmentation will emerge regarding AI use?
→ How will people respond to synthetic humans and AI tools providing increasingly personalised content?
→ What will the regulatory environments that govern AI tools and synthetic content look like?
→ Will there be a difference in how people perceive personalised/hyper-localised content, and personalised delivery of that content
(info. vs. tone of voice)?
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Process → Speculative product visions

Kris is an AI-powered weather Kris sends hyper-local and hyper- For Kris to deliver personalised weather
forecaster. He is a real-time simulated focused weather forecasts to keep Ola news, we work with multiple fashion
avatar that delivers personalised updated about upcoming weather brands and retailers. Kris is dressed
weather updates alerts that are mst relevant to him. based on Ola's preferences.
to millions of users.

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Process
→ Experiments

Chris from the Futures Lab scanned and

animated using MetaHuman Live Link.

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Process → Experiments

Can we take
structured data as
an input, and
create an animated
avatar as an
output?

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Process → Experiments

Can we take structured data as an input,

and create an animated avatar as an
output?

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Process → Experiments

Can we take structured data as an input,

and create an animated avatar as an
output?

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Process → Experiments

Can we take structured data as an input,

and create an animated avatar as an
output?

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Futures Lab

Process → Experiments

Can we take structured data as an input,

and create an animated avatar as an
output?

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Futures Lab

Process → Experiments

Can we take structured data as an input,

and create an animated avatar as an
output?

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Futures Lab

Process → Experiments

Can we take structured data as an input,

and create an animated avatar as an
output?

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Process → Investment

We assess our experiments and

hypotheses at regular intervals, looking
for ideas that are technically feasible,
financially viable, and desirable to our
customers.

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Investments

Large Language Models will revolutionise how we create,

distribute, and interact with news media & other digital
content.
💸

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Large Language Models

Can we use Large Language models to help journalists

summarise news articles?
• Readers favour shorter formats
• Editorial teams struggle to prioritise creating shorter formats
• Sample data already exists

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Large Language Models

→ few-shot training
We were able to generate
understandable and relevant text
in Norwegian from structured
data with only 4 examples.

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Large Language Models

→ fine tuning
Using sample data we can refine
the outputs of the model. This
sacrifices versatility for consistency
and quality.

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News Summarisation

A Web App makes our summariser

accessible internally for testing and
refinement.

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News Summarisation

Integration with VGs

Snapchat creation tool.

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News Summarisation

Integration
with our live
reporting
CMS.

Image by Julia M Cameron

Pexels

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User research → approach & key findings

15 interviews with
editorial staff in Norway
and Sweden → we found
cautious optimism.

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VG’s JoJo

Local transcription using OpenAI’s

Whisper algorithm.
• 100+ languages
• Translation to English
• Can run locally on your machine
for privacy and source protection

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VG’s Short Version

VG is testing short forms that are

AI-generated and journalist-
approved.
• Most people only read the first few paragraphs
• Users want to decide which articles to invest in reading
• Early tests of summaries on the home page lead

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Aftenposten Voice

Aftenposten has rolled out

voiceovers using a voice clone of
Anne Lindholm to the majority of
their articles
• Many people prefer to listen
• High applicability for kids who are learning to read

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Aftenposten Voice

Aftenposten has rolled out

voiceovers using a voice clone of
Anne Lindholm to the majority of
their articles

Avg Article targeting

AP Junior
article young

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Aftenposten Voice

Lessions from Spotify… convenience is king

Many options One option

Here’s something you’ll like

Pick a song Pick a genre Pick a mood Just press play
(For you)

All the songs and albums in the Everything from the same genre in Everything you need for your dinner Playlists made for you, irrespective No playlists or options. Just a
world one place party or run of genre personal DJ “one tap away”

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Aftenposten Voice

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VG’s Short Version

Futures Lab is testing how we

might be able to feed real-time
data into GPT using plugins
• As tools like ChatGPT are connected to external data and
services, how will our relationship with our users change?
• How can we adapt our content to work
in emerging conversational interfaces?

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Generative futures

Creation Discovery Interaction

How will we research and create How will our users discover, seek out and What kinds of devices, formats, and interaction
content (& code)? access content? patterns will people use?

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Interaction
What interactions that we take
for granted today will disappear?

What behaviours and

expectations will we see in future
users?

It’s a Book - Children’s book by Lane Smith

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Thank you!

Get in touch:
Anders Grimstad
anders.grimstad@schibsted.com

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