Artificial Intelligence (AI) is moving beyond experimentation and into the wider operations of news organizations. These shifts will take centre stage at Paris AI Forum 2026, starting today: 15–16 September at the Auditorium Les Echos–Le Parisien in Paris.
Under the theme “Scaling Up Fast. Building Smart Guardrails,” the forum will examine how publishers are positioning themselves in an AI-driven market, scaling AI across their organizations and developing products around user needs. The programme will also address traffic, content crawling and the growing role of non-human systems in how news is accessed and discovered.
OpenAI and Microsoft AI will feature in the programme as the forum examines how AI is changing news products, editorial workflows and the relationship between publishers and technology platforms. Anabelle Nicoud, Commissioning Editor at Microsoft AI, will moderate a session examining ‘AI Beyond Text: Building Products from Your Assets’, while Tom Rubin, Chief of Intellectual Property and Content at OpenAI, will deliver a keynote on the second day.
From AI Products to Publisher Traffic: The Issues on Table
The programme will examine the strategic, editorial and commercial questions publishers are confronting as AI moves into day-to-day operations.
Discussions will explore where publishers should compete in an AI-driven market, how organizations can scale AI from dedicated teams across the wider newsroom, and how user needs can be translated into AI products. Speakers will also examine how publishers can turn editorial assets, archives and proprietary expertise into products, including new approaches to archive discovery and access.
The debate will extend to how news reaches audiences in an increasingly AI-driven distribution environment. Sessions will address social media automation, how publishers should structure news for the non-human ecosystem, who is crawling publisher content and what that access is worth, and the changing battle for discoverability across Google, AI search and publisher traffic.
The programme will also consider the economics surrounding AI, including licensing, search traffic, measurement and value exchange, alongside the question of AI sovereignty and the importance of data and expertise.
Inside news organizations, speakers will discuss redesigning newsroom structures, developing new skills and workflows, turning ideas into working prototypes, and using AI in automated print production. These discussions address the organizational changes accompanying AI adoption, from new newsroom roles and skills to the integration of AI into production workflows.
Voices Shaping Debate
The forum brings together speakers from the USA, Belgium, Norway, France, the UK, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Sweden and Croatia, reflecting the international range of the programme.
Among the prominent speakers are Tom Rubin, Chief of Intellectual Property and Content at OpenAI; Anabelle Nicoud, Commissioning Editor at Microsoft AI; Tim O’Rourke, Vice President, Editorial Innovation + AI Strategy at Hearst Newspapers; Ana Jakimovska, Head of AI Strategy at Mediahuis; Juan Carlos López Calvet, Director of Data & AI at Schibsted; and Lou Grasser, Chief Digital Officer at Le Monde Group and many others.
The growing use of news content by AI companies has intensified tensions with publishers over copyright, compensation and access to journalism. The New York Times has taken OpenAI and Microsoft, and later Perplexity, to court over the use of its journalism, while publishers are also facing declining referral traffic as AI systems increasingly provide direct answers to users.
As AI companies gain greater access to journalism and AI becomes more embedded in how news is produced, discovered and consumed, the question remains: who will capture the value of the journalism that makes these systems useful in the first place?
Also Read: 400 Newspapers Drag Microsoft and OpenAI to Court for “Stealing” Journalists’ Works
