Growing demand for video and the limitations of existing workflows.
Information consumption is shifting toward 'short-form video,' particularly among younger audiences, making video increasingly vital for news distribution. However, traditional manual production has its limits. Requiring specialized skills and taking 1.5 hours per video, timely reporting was a challenge. Consequently, monthly distributions on Kobe Shimbun’s digital platform, 'Kobe Shimbun NEXT,' were capped at approximately 30 videos.
Automating production workflows via custom app development.
Kobe Shimbun developed a proprietary app that manages the entire production chain: from fetching articles and photos to generating AI-driven outlines, scripts, and captions, as well as TTS (Text-to-Speech) audio, thumbnails, and the final video export. This reduced production time to just 15 minutes per video, enabling high-volume distribution. A key feature of the app is our hybrid approach: while AI generates the scripts, we intentionally used programmatic automation—rather than AI—for image integration, audio syncing, and thumbnail creation. This approach prioritizes journalistic credibility; by avoiding AI-generated visuals, we eliminate the risk of 'fakes' while still leveraging technology to scale our news delivery.
