The online magazine Cukr uses artificial intelligence tools as daily assistants to organize its workflows. This large language model understands the newsroom’s management culture and can look back at previous conversations with each employee to provide relevant information or feedback. The editor-in-chief aims to automate all monotonous tasks so that talented people can focus on creative work.
The Sumy-based media outlet Cukr began using artificial intelligence a year and a half ago. At first, they used ChatGPT, but later switched to Claude because it handled Ukrainian better. They are now testing Grok, as Claude blocks Ukrainian accounts registered near the Russian border, causing technical issues. Despite this, early experiments still show Claude performing best, so the newsroom is collaborating with its developers at Anthropic to address accessibility for Ukrainian users. At the same time, the team is exploring other language models to find the most convenient and effective solutions for their work.
AI tools are now integrated into all editorial workflows. An Adobe Premiere plugin reduces podcast editing time from eight hours to three. Claude assists not only with text editing but also with management processes. Even so, the team continues to test new tools to improve their overall user experience.
The outlet does not have a dedicated AI specialist, so prompting skills are required from every team member. The goal of using AI is to streamline processes and free up more time for creative work. Anything that takes too long or has become complicated should be automated.
Dmytro Tishchenko shares information about all workflows with the AI so it builds a knowledge base and understands his management style. And it works: the language model has already learned to provide advice based on this information, helping to resolve misunderstandings between editorial departments and improve operational processes.
Dmytro explains that Cukr now has six AI service subscriptions and tests them daily. “I still can’t fully tell whether this has increased our productivity or, on the contrary, expanded our capabilities so much that anxiety has only grown,” adds the editor-in-chief.
The newsroom’s main tool is Claude, with a team paid plan and eight specialized projects for different tasks. It edits texts, creates social media posts, and provides feedback to journalists on the structure of materials, drawing on the full set of data it has about the media outlet and its work. Audience research collected since 2021 in collaboration with ISD Group and Jnomics Media has been uploaded to Claude’s projects. This data is not just demographic; it contains detailed reader profiles, including expectations, fears, and preferences. The AI takes these parameters into account when working with texts and communications.
The team also conducted blind testing: they took draft texts, processed them through different AI tools, and asked the team to evaluate the outputs without revealing which model produced what. This process led them to select Claude as the best option.
Artificial intelligence also serves as a team management advisor. It keeps a record of all interactions between the editor-in-chief and colleagues, helping to make informed decisions and plan the next strategic steps in management. “Claude knows me as a leader and my team better than I can remember. It understands my approaches, management culture, and helps me choose the words that describe it best,” says Dmytro. He turns to the assistant whenever he needs to respond quickly to a work situation, taking into account the traits of his colleagues.
The media outlet also uses other tools. For example, an Adobe Premiere plugin automatically edits podcasts recorded with three cameras. The program identifies who is speaking, creates a storyboard, cleans the audio, and adds subtitles with custom designs. This reduces editing time from eight hours to three to five hours.
The team continues testing different language models to find the most convenient tools for their work. One of the new experiments is Perplexity, which is intended to simplify data exchange between various work systems. This AI performs well with research, data analysis, and queries that require verified sources. Despite its promising features, the newsroom faced technical limitations. For example, the service does not allow reviewing or returning to the history of previous chats, so a full transition to it was not possible.
They are also exploring Genspark, a service that generates presentations, spreadsheets, podcasts in Ukrainian, edits video clips, and creates websites, updating with new features every two weeks. In this way, Cukr develops its own AI expertise, analyzing different models and choosing those that genuinely enhance the newsroom’s work.
One of the challenges in working with AI is finding a tool that supports Cyrillic fonts when handling multimedia content. Another challenge is that people often don’t have enough time to master new technologies. For this reason, Cukr’s staff try to monitor the emergence of new tools on the market. “I want our media outlet to be among the first to show how cool it can be to integrate artificial intelligence,” concludes the editor-in-chief.
