90% of people rate AI literacy content as useful, and you can publish it tomorrow

This is the fourth edition of Beyond the Byline, a column written by Indiegraf’s Entrepreneur in Residence for AI Laura E. Davis. It focuses on highly actionable, no-nonsense strategies to help your newsroom stand out and thrive in an era of AI slop and eroding audience trust.

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Who’s educating your community about AI?

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What if I told you that there is a story you could publish tomorrow that 90% of your audience would rate as “somewhat” or “very” useful? Oh, and that same story could help win over people who have little or no trust in news.

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It’s probably no surprise that news consumers have questions about AI—everything from how it will impact their lives, to how the technology works, to detecting AI-generated content. In fact, in one of the editions of this column, I recommended that you ask your audience exactly what AI questions they have. If you did that, you have a great jumping off point for this week’s recommendation. But even if you didn’t, I’m still going to make it super easy for you to take advantage of a finding from some of the latest research on AI and journalism: that AI literacy content can increase trust in news organizations and win over skeptical audiences.

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What does the research say about AI literacy content?

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The findings come from a study by Trusting News and the Minnesota Journalism Center at the University of Minnesota. The researchers showed people examples of AI literacy content and asked them how it affected their perception of the news organization producing the content. Crucially, they found that:

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• 48% of people who saw just one piece of AI literacy content said they were “somewhat” or “much more” trusting of the news organization after viewing it
• 47% said they’d come back to the news organization for more information on AI, including 35% of people who had low trust in news to begin with
• 90% of people, regardless of their level of trust in news, rated AI literacy content as “somewhat” or “very” useful

They also tested what types of AI literacy content most affected trust in the news organization, and a majority of respondents who viewed a social media post with tips for protecting family and friends from AI dangers reported being more trusting of the organization afterward.

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AI literacy content templates ready to use

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👉 So try this: Trusting News created this template on Canva with social media cards covering tips for protecting family and friends from the dangers of AI. Update them with your branding and share them this week. (And count me among the 90% of people who find this content useful 🙋‍♀️ It was a good reminder for me to create a family safeword.)

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Bonus tip: I spent years as a social media editor for organizations such as Yahoo News and the Los Angeles Times, and I have always said that repetition on social media isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Once you create these cards, you can use them over and over again. Space them out, of course, but don’t be afraid to repeat this evergreen content.

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⬆️ Level up: Content about protecting family and friends increases trust, and it’s one of the two types of content the study tested that keeps people coming back to your organization for information about AI. The other type is tips for spotting AI content. Go here for Trusting News’ social media template on Canva to see ready-made content on that topic.

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These are just a couple pieces of content to get you started. If you want to do a deep dive on AI literacy and see more content templates, Trusting News created this AI Literacy Trust Kit.