We are delighted to welcome Lukas Görög as our AI Expert-in-Residence. In the past Lukas has helped Die Presse build their data infrastructure, and more recently he led Neue Zuercher Zeitung’s AI strategy and personalization efforts.
Starting from 1 April 2026, he will share his deep AI expertise, particularly tailored to the needs of newsrooms, with MDIF’s clients and partners.
As he joins MDIF for a six-month engagement, we spoke to Lukas to get his quick take on key issues related to AI-adaption in media and some tips for media outlets wanting to catch up with the AI race. Here’s what he said:
In your work with different media outlets, what is one common mistake you see newsrooms make when approaching AI?
Four things keep coming up. They underestimate how fast AI moves. The tools around which we built our NZZ strategy in April 2024 were outdated by September. Then there’s comfort: people stick with workflows that waste hours because “that’s how we’ve always done it”. The opposite extreme is just as bad, trying to launch ten AI projects at once and burning out the team. And finally, too many newsrooms treat AI as an IT project. They hand it to the tech department and wait. But this is a cultural shift. It needs editorial leadership, not just infrastructure.
For a small or mid-sized media company still at an early stage, what is the most basic AI checklist they should have in place today?
Get your team using AI tools every day, not once a week. Build that muscle memory. Write a one-page AI guideline: what’s allowed, what needs human approval, what data never goes into a free tool. Then look at where your people lose the most time on repetitive tasks (newsletter formatting, social posts, transcriptions) and test AI solutions for those three things first. Find one curious person in your team and give them the mandate to experiment and share learnings. And track what you try: what worked, how much time it saved. Without numbers, you won’t get budget for the next step.
Over the coming months, what core areas will you focus on when working with MDIF’s clients and partners?
Speed first. Independent outlets don’t have big teams, so AI has to remove friction from daily workflows. I’ll focus on integrating AI agents into real processes: transcription, translation and content repurposing across formats. Then I’ll work with each partner to build a clear roadmap. I use something I call the AI Impact Matrix, mapping use cases by time savings and strategic value. We’ll find the quick wins; the things you can implement in weeks and see results immediately. I’ll also push on data: many newsrooms sit on valuable audience and content data but don’t use it. And everything will be right-sized. A small outlet in Sub-Saharan Africa needs a different strategy than a digital publisher in Switzerland. No one-size-fits-all. The core principle through all of it: empower people, don’t replace them.
What is one thing you strongly believe about how newsrooms should use AI, or avoid using it?
Put AI into your thinking process everywhere, then be critical about every output. Challenge your whole editorial workflow. How could we research this differently? How could we tell this story in three formats instead of one? How could we find patterns in data that humans would miss? Use AI for investigative document analysis, go through thousands of pages in hours instead of weeks. Build multimedia and data-driven stories that were impossible before with small teams. Try auto-podcasts, hyper-personalized newsfeeds, churn prediction models. All of that is happening right now and it’s accessible, not just for the big players. But here’s the line: don’t feed your unpublished stories, source lists, or editorial strategy into free tools. If you’re not paying, the product is your data. Be especially careful with free-tier products that want to learn from your content. Use paid tools for anything sensitive. Be bold in adoption, be critical in evaluation, be smart about your data.
Are there any resources you would recommend?
Our AI Academy newsletter at akademie-ki.com/ki-newsletter (German, but full of practical tool tips). INMA’s newsletters and blog at inma.org is easily the best global resource for news media innovation. The Reuters Institute at reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk, their annual Predictions Report and “Future of Journalism” podcast. JournalismAI by the LSE at journalismai.info, great for hands-on training. And “The AI Daily Brief” podcast for the broader AI picture beyond media.
Where can AI create the most immediate practical value for independent newsrooms?
Speed. A full day of research compressed into 30 minutes. A press conference turned into a publishable summary in seconds. Translation into five languages before lunch. You don’t need a big budget for big results. A three-person newsroom with the right tools can produce what used to take 15 people. AI also opens up storytelling that was reserved for outlets with dedicated data teams: document analysis, data visualization, investigative deep dives. I like to think of it this way: AI is like a kitchen. It can produce a Michelin-star meal or fast food. The only difference is the ingredients and the chef. Independent newsrooms already have excellent chefs. They have editorial judgment, source networks and local knowledge. AI just gives them better equipment.