African media outlets are urged to embrace AI and automation to adapt to the fast-paced digital landscape, ensuring relevance while safeguarding editorial integrity. This shift is crucial for staying competitive with audiences who consume news minute-by-minute on smartphones.

• The author, Editorial Director at Capital FM Kenya, emphasizes that AI offers game-changing efficiencies like flagging trending topics and automated social publishing.
• A key challenge is developing clear editorial policies for AI use, ensuring human oversight for accuracy, ethics, and cultural sensitivity.
• The article stresses investment in training journalists to understand AI's capabilities and limitations, especially in diverse linguistic contexts to avoid bias.
• Collaboration among African media houses is highlighted as essential for sharing best practices and shaping AI tools to reflect African languages and realities.
• Ultimately, technology should serve the story and trust, not replace human judgment, empathy, and editorial courage, with AI acting as an ally to tell stories more powerfully.