Artificial intelligence is the driver of innovation in publishing houses

Demographic change, with its impact on customer needs such as reading habits and preferences, on sales and subscriber numbers and on the labour market, remains the most important issue for the future for 83 percent of the companies we surveyed for our "Publishing Trends 2024" study.

This is followed in second to fifth place by

• Threats to corporate security, for example through data misuse, data loss and cyber attacks
• Automation: use of artificial intelligence
• Individualisation of lifestyles and customer needs and
• "New Work", i.e. everything to do with the change in attitude to work and working life.

The topic of climate change and sustainability is no longer in the top 5. Last year, it was still the main topic of the publishing study and in second place among the megatrends with 66 per cent, just behind demographic change (67 per cent), but this year it can only be found in sixth place in our megatrends top ten ranking.  

• Threat to corporate security from 49 to 80 per cent,
• automation from 46 to 78 per cent,
• geopolitical tensions (e.g. political conflicts, protectionism) from 26 to 58 per cent and
• populism (polarisation, discrimination, hate speech, fake news) from 34 to 62 percent.

In addition to the megatrends, our survey also focusses on the strategic priorities of publishers. As in previous years, optimising processes and improving the ability to innovate are the most important priorities for most companies. Publishers are also increasingly focussing their strategic priorities on technology, data management and IT security.

The most significant developments are in the areas of data protection, IT compliance and cyber security, which are seen as important strategic priorities by 73 per cent of respondents (previous year: 43 per cent).

The strategic priorities reflect the assessment of the megatrends. For example, the high strategic importance of data protection and cyber security is a reaction to the increasing risk of cyber attacks and data loss - in second place in the megatrend ranking of our study.

The same applies to the important future topic of automation through the use of artificial intelligence: for 64 per cent of publishers, the use of innovative technologies has a high strategic priority and is seen as an important success factor.

In this year's edition of our publishing trends, we have focussed on the importance of artificial intelligence, as this technology is fundamentally changing the publishing industry through a wide range of possible applications. AI enables efficiency gains through automation, opens up new ways of producing and distributing content, helps to analyse reading preferences and supports the personalisation of content offerings. AI tools can also check texts for plagiarism and thus ensure the originality of content.

It is therefore hardly surprising that the use of AI is of great strategic importance for almost 80 per cent of the publishers surveyed. Over 70 per cent have experience with AI - and this is largely positive. Artificial intelligence is already being used in day-to-day business by 33 per cent of publishers, while a further 44 per cent are in a testing and experimental phase.

However, our study not only illustrates the importance of artificial intelligence, but also provides an overview of possible applications, highlights the benefits and advantages of AI and also identifies the risks and challenges associated with the technology.

The study also provides recommendations for the use of generative AI and the steps required for implementation. A customer story about the use of AI in a large media company rounds off the study, which you can download now.