On December 8, 2025, Jasmin Baake, Besjon Cifliku, and Prof. Hendrik Heuer from the CAIS research program “Design of Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence” presented their latest research on artificial intelligence (AI) in journalism at the invitation of Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). The presentation took place as part of the WDR AI Forum, a regularly held internal digital professional development format that serves as a platform for information and exchange.
As part of the forum, Jasmin Baake provided insights into her research on young people from working-class families and their engagement with AI-based news agents. Using the usage data of a self-developed local news chatbot, she demonstrated how vocational school students from Bochum-Wattenscheid interact with such systems. The focus was on questions such as: What information are these young adults looking for?
What follow-up questions do they ask? And to what extent can AI-based news agents, as a new mode of news consumption, encourage young people to engage more actively with local news?
In total, more than 80 WDR employees attended the digital presentation.