Living Media

The Flemish media sector is under pressure due to increasing foreign competition and a declining number of television subscriptions. Generative AI can help media organisations continue to reach audiences through new formats and innovative content experiences. However, most media companies currently use the technology mainly for tasks such as transcription, subtitling, and content summarisation. Applications that directly modify or generate content remain relatively rare.

Organisations that do take this next step want to ensure that content remains accurate and that editorial teams retain full control over what is published. At the same time, such applications must comply with regulatory frameworks, including the GDPR and the AI Act.

Finally, many organisations remain at the stage of isolated experiments, as they lack a structured approach for systematically testing AI solutions and scaling successful use cases across the organisation.

An advisory group consisting of companies and organisations from the media sector will closely follow the project and contribute questions and use cases. Together with these stakeholders, we will determine which experiments to pursue based on their relevance and potential value for the wider sector.

• Exploration Phase. During the first six months, we will map promising AI tools and use cases and gather insights from content creators and audiences regarding their expectations and needs. We will identify and document reusable design solutions (design patterns) for Living Media and translate ethical and legal frameworks into practical guidelines for implementation.
• Living Lab. Following the exploration phase, we will investigate the three forms of Living Media sequentially. For each form, we will start with interviews involving members of the advisory group and develop at least two demonstrators. These demonstrators, ranging from simple simulations to fully functional software prototypes, will serve to answer our research questions. The demonstrators will be evaluated by content creators and audiences through user testing and surveys, and their quality and feasibility will be assessed by domain experts. By comparing them with static versions of the same content, we will measure the added value of adaptive content in terms of factors such as comprehension, trust, and usability.
• Strategic Framework. While the living lab activities are ongoing, we will analyse ten to fifteen international case studies, including both successful and unsuccessful implementations. Interim findings will be discussed with AI specialists, designers, editors-in-chief, and legal experts. Combined with the results of the living lab, these insights will form the basis of a practical roadmap that helps organisations progress from initial experiments to the sustainable integration of Living Media within their day-to-day operations.