By KeyCrew Media
A year ago, most newsroom leaders were wary of artificial intelligence. Today, a large majority say they use it in some meaningful way inside their organizations.
Steve Marcinuk, Co-Founder and CEO of KeyCrew, has seen that shift firsthand in recent conversations with media leaders across the industry. KeyCrew is a real estate intelligence and media company that has used AI in its reporting process since its early days.
A Big Change in a Short Time
At a recent industry trade event, attendees were asked whether their organizations were actively using AI in some meaningful way. By Marcinuk’s estimate, close to 80 or 90 percent of the room said yes.
“If you ask some of those questions nine to 18 months ago, it would have been a very, very small percentage of folks,” he said.
That does not mean every one of those organizations uses AI to write stories. Some use it for operations or other business functions. Still, the speed of the change stood out.
Where Newsrooms Are Using It
The conversations went well beyond back-office tasks. Marcinuk spoke with media professionals who are using AI in research, in editorial drafting, and in other core newsroom functions.
“That’s a very different tone than we were hearing some months ago,” he said.
For readers, this matters because it changes how news is produced. For publishers, it raises a practical question: how do you use AI to do more without lowering the quality of your reporting?
Oversight Is What Makes It Work
KeyCrew’s answer has been the same from the start. AI is useful, but only with close human supervision.
“AI is a tool. It has a meaningful role to play, and you absolutely need strict supervision, strict checks, and qualified, talented writers and editors to oversee, edit, and check the outputs of the AI,” Marcinuk said. “But it’s a tremendously useful tool in creating quality reporting at scale.”
In practice, that means AI can speed up research and early drafts, but people still decide what is accurate, what is fair, and what gets published. Newsrooms that skip those checks risk publishing errors at the same speed they publish everything else. KeyCrew explains how it handles sourcing and review in its editorial guidelines.
What Newsrooms Should Keep in Mind
For media teams still deciding how far to go with AI, a few principles came through clearly:
Start with the problem, not the tool. Research support and drafting are common starting points because the gains are easy to measure.
Keep editors in charge. Every AI output should be reviewed and checked by an experienced person before it reaches readers.
Invest in the right tools. KeyCrew has built several proprietary tools for its own workflow rather than relying only on general-purpose software.
Be realistic about limits. AI can help with scale, but it does not replace reporting, sourcing, or judgment.
For KeyCrew, what it has heard from media leaders confirms something the company has believed for a while. “It’s perhaps refreshing to see that we’re not alone in our thesis, that AI has a useful role to play, with the limitations I described, in the future of reporting,” Marcinuk said. “That wasn’t the case a year ago.”
KeyCrew is a Florida-based real estate intelligence and media company that owns and operates digital publications covering the real estate industry. Its expert-sourced reporting is syndicated across more than 1,000 publications, news sites, and media outlets.
This article is based on information provided by the expert source cited above. It is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or real estate advice. Readers should conduct their own research and consult qualified professionals before making any real estate or financial decisions.
