How AI Automation is Transforming Print Production for Publishers

Escaping the Print Decline

Publishers are increasingly turning to automation not just to generate content, but to reduce the work involved in producing the newspaper. Representatives from Atex, StoryEditor, and EidosMedia detailed these workflow efficiencies during a recent WIZONE webinar.

The Boundary Between Machine and Mind

The first step in deploying production software is deciding what should be automated.

“AI suggests, editors decide,” said James Hirsz, Product Lead at Atex.

According to Hirsz, an editor prioritizes a story, specifies its position and width, and lets the automation engine work out the rest of the page. When a headline is too long for the available space, the system suggests alternatives using the publication’s editorial style book. Editors retain the decision to accept a suggestion, write a headline manually, or ignore the suggestions.

Conquering Physical Constraints

Unlike digital layouts, print design operates under finite space. A headline must fit a box without damaging the page, and images have to work within the layout. Hirsz noted that effective automation requires systems grounded in a publisher’s own style guide rather than relying on a generic model. Atex recommends a three-step implementation: starting narrow to prove it before expanding, fixing content models before going live, and giving AI the rules of the publication grounded in its own style guide.

As newspaper pages grow more complex, managing design logic becomes a core challenge. Marko Margeta, Director of Product Development at StoryEditor, explained that his firm avoids asking AI to invent page designs.

“If you give everything to AI, I think the result could be sterile or plain,” Margeta said.

StoryEditor instead deploys predefined templates and snippets. The software selects templates based on article size, section, images, and information boxes. When articles are too long for the available space, the system removes material it considers unnecessary to fit the story, leaving the editor to review what was deleted. The goal, Margeta emphasized, is to reduce the number of decisions that require a person to intervene manually rather than remove every decision from the workflow.

Automating the Entire Production Cycle

While some tools assist editors step-by-step, other platforms can generate complete print-ready pages from stories already prioritised by the newsroom. Jörg Drees, Director Marketing and Business Development at EidosMedia, demonstrated this process.

Once editors decide what runs, what leads, what is held and what matters to readers, EidosMedia’s software handles placement, sizing, headlines, images, and fitting the content to the page.

“That’s production work, not editorial work,” Drees said.

The platform analyzes a publication’s own production history and page archive to replicate its unique visual identity, including headline hierarchy and the relationship between text and image on the page. According to EidosMedia data, the system currently runs across more than 60 titles, producing over 46,000 pages in 2026 and saving more than 12,000 hours of layout and quality-assurance time.

That saved time directly alters newsroom operations. Drees noted that when layout takes minutes instead of hours, editors can focus more on quality—asking if the right image was used or if the front page deserves more attention—or push decisions later to accommodate breaking news and build additional sections or special editions without adding the same amount of manual work. Industry leaders maintain that regardless of how much production work software absorbs, editorial judgment remains with people.