The Yorke Peninsula Country Times (YPCT), like many other rural newspapers, has an editing crunch in its editorial department due to resource constraints. They wanted to use AI to streamline their editing and proofreading processes, while ensuring that all copy adhered closely to the newspaper’s style guide. They decided to focus first on reader-submitted copy, which was the most time-consuming to edit.

YPCT successfully implemented an AI-powered automation system combining Google AI Studio, Zapier and Google Forms to transform its sub-editing process. The new workflow ingests raw copy, edits it with AI, styles it and returns it to a sorted sheet. It is then reviewed by a human.

The time taken to subedit community articles decreased from 20 minutes to an average of 12 minutes. The team took the touching step of naming their new AI system Doris, after a long-serving and much-loved sub who has retired and has suffered in recent years from cognitive decline.

Their next steps are to continue refining the style guide component of their prompt and raise the style guide adherence of AI copy to above 90% of articles.