Artificial intelligence across journalism, film and television was at the centre of the Medientage München Special AI & Media, held on 21-22 May in Munich, bringing together industry executives, creatives and policymakers to discuss practical applications and strategic challenges.
Opening the conference, Medien.Bayern Managing Director Stefan Sutor said the initiative to set up this new format was driven by the growing relevance of AI across the entire media value chain, from production to distribution, while noting a lack of clear strategies within the industry.
Co-curator Yoko Higuchi-Zitzmann said that there was a need to examine the opportunities and risks offered by AI from multiple perspectives, including those of producers, actors and legal experts, while encouraging market players to take an active role: “Do we want to shape this development, or be shaped by it?” she asked, setting the tone for the event.
In his keynote, Dr Helge Fuhst, head of Axel Springer’s Premium Group, described AI as a crucial technology for journalism. “AI is not the enemy of journalists – it is the new operating system,” he said, arguing that the sector has moved into a phase of industrial deployment. He emphasised that trust and credibility would become key differentiators as synthetic and AI-generated content proliferates, with media brands and individual journalists acting as essential filters.
Fuhst also called for deeper integration of AI into newsroom workflows, advocating the development of proprietary tools rather than reliance on third-party licences. Despite rapid technological change, he underlined that human judgement and journalistic standards remain central. “The story is not written by algorithms, but by those who know how to use them,” he stressed.
AI filmmaker and storyteller Mark Wachholz used his keynote to illustrate how quickly creative production is being transformed. He produces fully AI-generated short films with a runtime of around five to ten minutes, demonstrating that end-to-end synthetic production is already technically viable rather than a distant concept.
“With AI, everything we ever wanted to do is now possible,” Wachholz said, but added that this does not make the process easier. The core creative question remains unchanged: “Which story do I want to tell and in which variation?” He also pushed back against Silicon Valley’s traditional mantra. Instead of “Move fast and break things,” Wachholz advocated a more considered approach: “Move smart and make things.”
A panel discussion reflected differing perspectives across the industry. Dr Marc Al-Hames (Hubert Burda Media) warned that value creation could increasingly take place outside Europe if companies rely too heavily on external platforms rather than developing their own capabilities. Andreas Briese (YouTube) described AI as a “huge opportunity” for creators, particularly smaller studios, and positioned the platform as a partner providing tools and infrastructure.
Dr Thorsten Schmiege, President of Bavarian regulator BLM, pointed to joint initiatives with Medien.Bayern, including the KI.M competence centre and an AI real-world lab, designed to enable hands-on experimentation. He called for greater collaboration across the industry, arguing that scale will be critical and that competition should focus on content rather than technology.
From a production perspective, Eric Lehmann (Constantin Film) said AI should remain invisible to audiences, even as it increasingly supports development and decision-making processes behind the scenes.
In a separate panel (pictured), Dr Georg Ramme (PROMPTR) stressed the continued importance of human creativity, warning against over-reliance on AI. He noted a growing trend to deliberately introduce imperfections into AI-generated content to avoid an overly polished, artificial look.
Nikola Kohl (south&browse) argued that the industry needs a period of maturation, shifting the debate from whether AI should be used to how it can be applied most effectively. Max Wiedemann (Leonine Studios/Mediawan Group) said AI should not primarily be about making processes more efficient or cost-effective, but about enabling what was not previously possible. Creativity, he stressed, remains irreplaceable: “Without human talent, all tools are useless.”
Adrian Daniel Botnariu (Beyondflix Productions) said that while much is now technically possible, key bottlenecks lie in legal questions and rigid processes that try to force AI into existing structures: “We need to build new processes.” He called for empowering a new generation of creators and allowing space for development, including in copyright frameworks, warning that otherwise momentum could stall. “Only then can the new medium emerge,” he said, adding that users should be approached directly instead of relying on traditional gatekeepers. “It requires a new mindset and breaking with old patterns.”
