HGP Nightly News – Artificial intelligence may be able to write scripts, clone voices and manufacture convincing videos, but President Irfaan Ali is warning Caribbean broadcasters never to surrender editorial judgment to the machine.
Delivering the keynote address at the opening of the Caribbean Broadcasting Union’s 57th Annual General Assembly in Georgetown on Tuesday night, Ali urged media organisations to use AI to strengthen journalism without allowing it to erode the region’s identity or public trust.
“Never allow the technology to become the journalist,” the President declared.
The conference, being held at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre under the theme “Caribbean Media and AI,” brought together broadcasters and other media professionals from across the region.
Ali identified four major challenges shaping the future of Caribbean broadcasting: economic sustainability, fragmented audiences, AI-fuelled misinformation and rapid technological change.
He said traditional media houses are competing with global technology platforms that absorb increasing shares of advertising revenue while investing little in producing Caribbean journalism.
Citing estimates from the Media Institute of the Caribbean, Ali said between 15 and 25 per cent of advertising revenue in some regional markets is shifting to platforms such as Google.
Traditional television providers are also losing audiences to streaming services.
The President referred to S&P Global data indicating that pay-TV penetration across Latin America and the Caribbean fell from 42 per cent in 2016 to 31 per cent in 2024.
Those shifts threaten the financial survival of broadcasters already operating in relatively small markets, he argued.
Ali called on the CBU to help its members develop new revenue models suited to the streaming era and changing audience habits.
He also warned that AI-generated misinformation presents an expanding threat to journalism, elections, public safety and citizens’ ability to distinguish genuine content from fabricated material.
The President cited research from British communications regulator Ofcom which reportedly found that 43 per cent of people aged 16 and older had encountered a deepfake during the preceding six months.
Only nine per cent felt confident that they could identify one.
Those figures relate to Ofcom’s surveyed market and do not necessarily measure deepfake exposure in the Caribbean, but Ali used them to illustrate the potential scale of the problem facing regional broadcasters.
He said AI can assist newsrooms by transcribing interviews, translating material and analysing large volumes of data.
However, he maintained that the technology cannot replace editorial judgment, cultural knowledge, ethical responsibility or the lived experiences journalists bring to their reporting.
Ali called on the Caribbean Broadcasting Union to champion clear rules requiring media organisations to disclose when content has been generated or materially altered using artificial intelligence.
Such standards, he argued, could help audiences understand what they are watching and protect confidence in legitimate journalism.
The opening ceremony also honoured several prominent Caribbean media figures.
The late Professor Aggrey Brown and journalist Ricky Singh were inducted into the CBU Media Hall of Fame.
Belizean journalist Jules Vasquez received the inaugural Caribbean Defender of Media Freedom Award.
As Caribbean newsrooms confront shrinking advertising income, fragmented audiences and increasingly convincing synthetic content, Ali’s central message was that AI should remain a newsroom tool, not become the editor, reporter or final authority on truth.
