This blog comes from our Impress Insights newsletter! If you want to be the first to hear the latest analysis and opinions from industry experts, you can sign up here! 

Many people are talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potential to impact our lives. Elon Musk asserts it will take our jobs and Geoffrey Hinton, often referred to as the ‘Godfather of AI’, predicts it will take over the world.

Fortunately, we’re nowhere near that yet. We’re in the era of narrow or weak AI, also known as Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI), which is trained to perform single, very specific tasks, quicker than a human can.

Musk and Hinton’s scary predictions refer to the abilities of general or strong AI, also known as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which will think and function just as humans do, broadly and adaptively. But AGI is still only a theoretical concept, the tools required to build it are not available today. ANI is the only type of AI that currently exists. Nevertheless, the buzz around AI has led to businesses having a fear of missing out (FOMO), but with its adoption comes the fear of messing up (FOMU).

In April 2025 the Impress Code Committee launched its Best Practice Note on the Use of Artificial Intelligence to give publishers the confidence to adopt and use AI tools in their newsrooms and to help them avoid ‘messing up’.

It is important to have realistic expectations of what AI can do for you. It can be a truly fantastic tool for improving efficiency and automating processes but it is not a panacea that will solve all your workplace issues. Here are some basic questions you should consider before jumping on the AI bandwagon:

• Do you need AI at all? 
• What problem will it solve for you? 
• Are there other solutions that are easier and cheaper to adopt and more secure?

The top tips that emerge from the Impress Best Practice Note on the use of Artificial Intelligence include:

• Always exercise human editorial review of AI-generated and AI-assisted content prepublication to ensure compliance with the Impress Standards Code.
• AI makes mistakes. Its responses can’t always be trusted to be accurate. Do not rely solely on AI tools for research purposes. Factcheck everything you see, hear and read before publishing.
• Avoid using AI tools to generate content depicting real people or actual events as it could seriously mislead your audience.  If AI generated photorealistic images, video or audio are used to illustrate a story, they should be clearly and prominently labelled.
• Build trust with your audience by being transparent about your use of AI tools.
• Think twice about what you input into Generative AI tools. Anything you share could be used as training date for future versions of the tool, infringing your personal copyright.
• Don’t input Personal Identifiable Information (PII) into Generative AI tools.  For investigative journalists and those working in war zones and other hostile environments privacy is vital both to protect themselves and their sources.

If you have already adopted AI tools or are about to adopt them, make sure you are sceptical about them, understand their limitations and be responsible when you use them. And of course, refer to the Impress best practice note on a regular basis to avoid that FOMU.

By Andrea Wills
Chair, Impress Code Committee

About Andrea Wills

Andrea is Chair of the Impress Code Committee and a member of the board. She has exceptional experience in broadcasting regulation, standard setting, and investigating serious editorial failings in the UK and Australia. She was Independent Editorial Adviser to the BBC Trust and investigated over 60 complaints about BBC content over the decade it existed. She began her career as a journalist and news editor in local radio, moved to television as an executive producer, before joining the BBC’s Editorial Policy team as its Chief Adviser. In Australia she worked for the ABC in Sydney, conducting independent reviews of broadcast content, developing editorial and media ethics standards, and training senior journalists.

About Impress 

Impress is a champion for news that can be trusted. We are here to make sure news providers can publish with integrity; and the public can engage in an ever-changing media landscape with confidence. We set the highest regulatory standards for news, offer education to help people make informed choices and provide resolution when disputes arise. 

Media enquiries

Louie Chandler: louie@impressorg.com / 02033076778