My takeaways from the INMA world congress in Berlin
From 5 to 8 May, the INMA World Congress of News Media took place in Berlin—the largest in its history to date. According to the organisers, it attracted over 775 participants from 38 countries, most of them representatives of news media organisations.
The event featured many inspiring presentations and live interviews on stage, delivered by and with top international and national guests. In addition, there were seminars, workshops, and more—all impressively hosted in a conference centre right next to the Brandenburg Gate.
My key takeaways:
Anglo-Saxon news media see themselves as being in a clear second wave of digital transformation—this time towards an AI-driven news landscape. This was summed up beautifully in the phrase: “Alongside microchips and energy, content is now the third crucial pillar of the AI supply chain.” The protection of intellectual property was a central theme that followed. The focus was on how to prevent the theft of one’s own content and how to ensure that LLM providers pay for using it. Much discussion revolved around blocking technology, but also around commercial agreements with the LLMs.
Interestingly, questions about a future regulatory framework were not discussed—I suspect this reflects a distinctly European perspective. However, I fear that regulation will ultimately be necessary, especially given the large number of medium-sized and smaller publishers.
In addition to AI, subscriptions were the second major topic at the conference. The traditional concept of the “subscription funnel” was strongly challenged. Today, successful subscription-based news organisations are shifting towards “engagement loops”: building relationships across various channels, offers, and topic selection, and gradually converting these into subscriptions. Examples include developing editorial personalities and launching additional products such as podcasts. There was also a strong emphasis on integrating subscription marketing closely with the newsroom. This makes perfect sense and aligns with the strategic focus and success patterns we are observing among our own clients.
Digital advertising is still going strong, but it is undergoing radical change. Only ad spaces shown to registered subscribers are currently commanding high prices. This is yet another argument in favour of subscriptions—and against ad-free digital subscriptions as the norm.
Of course, the use of AI in newsrooms was also a key topic. This subject dominated the practical sessions on Friday. Many organisations described how they use AI in their newsrooms, for example for proofreading, tagging, archive searches and image suggestions, as well as the automatic generation of millions of TikTok videos by a publisher based in Asia.
The various approaches were interesting—the use cases presented were all very practical and genuinely made work easier. In my view, AI has become indispensable in newsrooms. The key question is now how it will be implemented. Among the publishers presenting, editorial hesitance towards AI seemed to have disappeared, though caution and responsibility were always emphasised. Especially among European participants, there were clear warnings about a potential flood of AI-generated content (with “trust” being the most common term).
On the other hand, it was encouraging to see that AI is not only accessible to the largest media houses, as our client ZVW from Waiblingen impressively demonstrated. Their team has almost fully automated their print newspaper production, meaning that only minimal manual checks are usually required.
Overall, the atmosphere was distinctly positive, collegial, and pragmatic. The challenges are clear, and it’s better to help shape the transformation—an exchange like this is very valuable in that regard. It was impressive to see that news media around the globe are driving so much innovation.
Andreas Demuth is founder and CEO of Upscore.