Saga Digital AI is a “first of its kind” AI-powered media outlet founded by Amar Guriro that uses a variety of software and AI-generated content to conduct journalism.

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“It was weird for me to stay with the paper [print media],” Guriro said when asked about leaving his previous job at The Independent Urdu to form Saga Digital after a 26-year career in print media. “Better than a job is doing your own work, being your own boss.”

“There was too much censorship, and very little journalism, which became my main gripe,” Guriro added.

Guriro and another reporter, who asked not to be named as it would jeopardise their current position in their newsroom, founded Saga Digital AI using Rs4 million of their personal funds.

“I’m the Chief Editor. Apart from me, there’s someone for social media, AI generation, and video editing,” he said.

They have commissioned around 60 reporters and freelancers in seven different countries, including Pakistan, Germany, and the US, to send them stories. “I would say it’s a 40:60 ratio of AI to human [content],” Guriro said.

The 5-person team uses 52 separate software programs, each generating different aspects of their videos. Their content features 100% human-generated posts, AI-generated people giving video explainers on real footage, and they have also generated AI characters in the likeness of real people, with their consent.

Alia, the digital host of Saga Digital AI’s sports section

One such character is modelled after Soojal, a person with disabilities who has trouble speaking.

An AI-generated video using Soojal’s likeness

Another person who has consented to their likeness being used is Zulfiqar Qadri, a writer, columnist and social activist currently working at The Philanthropist.

An AI-generated video using Zulfiqar Qadri’s likeness

“We’re quite a small team,” Guriro said, and using AI presenters has a lower cost than hiring an actual person to speak on camera.

When asked about his choice to use AI presenters, Guriro said, “I don’t have many gripes with progress…AI is a tool, so what you feed it is what you get.”

Using AI presenters also has a lower cost than hiring someone to speak on camera, and he said that they are “quite a small team.”

Haroon Rashid, Managing Editor at The Independent Urdu and Guriro’s former boss, said that “a real person can convey empathy, humour, and a nuanced understanding of complex topics that AI may struggle to replicate fully”

“This connection can enhance trust and credibility in the news being presented,” he said. “AI characters can provide several advantages, such as the ability to deliver news in a consistent and unbiased manner and present information in engaging ways. They can also be available 24/7 without the limitations of human fatigue or bias,” he said.

Farieha Aziz, Director and Co-Founder of Bolo Bhi, an organisation geared towards digital rights, said that “AI, where useful, should be harnessed for the supposedly more ‘menial’ or time-consuming tasks, such as note-taking or transcription.”

“I still feel human oversight is important, and outsourcing everything for efficiency does not necessarily always mean quality… The more we outsource, the less we develop our own abilities. When AI summarises, that just takes away your own absorption, retention, thinking, and processing ability, so is that helpful just for output?”

When asked about the overall use of AI in the newsroom and ethical issues people may raise, Guriro said, “AI is just a tool. My calculator is a tool; can it be unethical? If the tool is used ethically, how can it be a bad thing?”

He also said that he does not attempt to pass off AI-generated content as human.

“The margin for error with AI is tremendous,” Farieha said, “We saw this during the [May] conflict. One example is Grok saying the image of Rawalpindi stadium being razed to the ground was accurate. And it was not.”

Guriro said that their AI characters only say what is in their script, “We generate the images, write the script, and they just read it out.”