Making AI Work: How Leading Publishers Are Streamlining Workflows
AI isn’t just hype anymore – it’s actively transforming publishing workflows and delivering tangible outcomes.
But there’s a big difference between simply using an AI tool and building a smart, integrated AI strategy that genuinely makes your operation faster, smarter, and more profitable.
At VMG, we partner with some of the biggest names in publishing to reimagine how content is produced, managed, and distributed. AI is a powerful lever we use, but only when it makes sense for your workflow, your unique goals, and your team.
There’s a lot of noise around AI… so many different tools, conflicting advice, and endless opinions. It can be hard to know where to even begin!
In our experience, the most effective place to start is by reviewing your workflow.
Start with Your Workflow Challenges
Before diving into platforms or features, our first step is always understanding what’s holding your team back. For publishers, we often see common friction points that quietly drain resources and slow momentum. These include:
- Converting print to digital: Manually reformatting, adding metadata, and placing media.
- Managing vast content libraries: Keeping track of assets across different titles and platforms.
- Adapting content for new platforms: Rewriting or reformatting for specific channels.
- Updating archive content: Extracting text or updating dated information like ages, population figures, or historical timelines.
- Creating content summaries: Condensing lengthy articles or reports into concise overviews.
- Optimizing email lists: Managing and segmenting subscriber data for effective engagement.
- Creating metadata and tags: Categorizing content for search and discoverability.
- Localizing or narrating content: Adapting articles for global or audio-first audiences.
The good news? Strategic AI integrations can shoulder much of this heavy lifting, freeing up your editorial and production teams to focus on higher-value work.
Use AI To Make Your Workflows More Efficient
Once you’ve identified your pain points, the next step is mapping out AI workflows to make those processes more efficient and scalable. Connecting the right solutions to the right challenges is what makes all the difference.
Here are just a few AI-powered workflows we’ve recently helped publishers implement:
- Dynamic Headline Optimization: Training AI to generate and A/B test high-performing headlines tailored to specific platforms (like Apple News) and user behaviors, boosting click-through rates.
- Print-to-Digital Article Automation: Leveraging AI to ingest InDesign or PDF files to create CMS-ready articles – complete with formatting, metadata, and rich media placement – cutting conversion time dramatically.
- AI-powered Audio Narration: Automatically generating natural-sounding, high-quality audio versions of articles, expanding accessibility and engagement for audio-first audiences without extensive studio costs.
- Multilingual Content Adaptation: Producing fast, accurate translations of articles using AI, enabling quick expansion into new language markets.
- Auto-Tagging and Metadata Enrichment: Using AI to scan content, generate relevant tags, and enrich metadata automatically, improving SEO performance and content discoverability across all distribution channels.
Note that platforms like Apple now require you to flag when content has been created or modified by AI. According to their guidelines, any articles generated by or with the assistance of AI must be labeled as such in the byline or metadata, and AI-generated media should be clearly marked.
If AI played a major role in creating the content, Apple encourages including a note explaining how it was used. Staying transparent helps maintain reader trust – and keeps you compliant.
Keep Humans at the Heart of the Process
All of this sounds impressive, and it is. But here’s the critical insight: AI’s true power is unlocked only when guided by a clear, strategic human vision. So, user beware: unsupervised AI can – and often does – miss the mark, producing generic, inaccurate, or off-brand content.
At VMG, we don’t just “hit the AI button” and hope for the best. We design intelligent, hybrid workflows that skillfully combine AI’s efficiency with the indispensable human elements of expertise, creativity, and strategic oversight. This means you get the speed and cost-effectiveness of AI without ever compromising on the quality, credibility, or genuine creativity that defines your publication.
As Adam, our digital publishing expert, puts it:
“AI is a workflow accelerator – it helps you move faster and smarter. But it’s just one piece of the puzzle. Humans still play the critical role of guiding it, ensuring the outputs are accurate, valuable, and truly aligned with your audience and brand.”
Final Thoughts: AI is Part of Working Smarter
Ultimately, it’s not about chasing the latest tool. It’s about strategically choosing and integrating the right solutions that genuinely enhance your content, deepen your connection with readers, and uphold your editorial integrity.
Curious how AI could deliver real value in your setup? We’re here to chat solutions. Let’s explore how strategic AI integration can streamline your workflows and unlock new potential for your team. Get in touch to learn more.
