Reuters’ Jane Barrett on why people matter more than technology in AI transformation
“One of the scariest things that I saw was the massive gap between what leaders think we’re doing and how employees are receiving it,” Barrett said during the World News Media Congress in Marseille.
Barrett, who has been leading AI transformation efforts at Reuters, was recently named Head of Product. She pointed to research from Betterworks showing that 59 percent of leaders believe they communicate a clear AI vision, while only 8 percent of employees agree.
The gap suggests that leaders and employees often have very different views of how AI change is being communicated.
Additionally, Barrett said that AI-driven change is shaped more by people and processes than by the technology, citing conversations with industry peers.
“Only 10 percent of the change is actually about AI and the algorithms,” she said. Twenty percent is about technology and data. The remaining 70 percent is about people and processes.
Navigating the fog of AI change
Barrett described the current moment as a “foggy road” where leaders often cannot see far ahead.
In those moments, leaders must slow down, look for familiar markers, and help people keep moving forward, she said. When the path becomes clearer, they can show people where the organisation is heading.
The challenge starts with leaders themselves.
“We have to ask ourselves: Are we building the right things? Are we involved in the right things? Are we fighting on the right side of this massive change?” Barrett said.
Leadership today requires agility rather than certainty. News leaders can no longer rely solely on expertise accumulated over years in the industry. They must keep learning, unlearning, and adapting to new ways of working.
“We have to challenge ourselves to think about different modalities, different business models, different ways of leading people.”
Why leadership looks more like a jazz band
Barrett used a music analogy to describe how leadership is changing.
In the past, leaders often acted like captains, giving orders and making decisions for everyone else. Later, they became conductors, coordinating teams with specialist knowledge.
Today, leadership resembles leading a jazz band.
The role is no longer to have all the answers. Instead, leaders create the conditions for people to experiment, contribute ideas, and respond to change.
“We know the general rules and the norms of music. But we also actually just give all of our fellow band members the right and the license to improvise,” Barrett said.
The role becomes less about giving orders and more about listening, responding, and helping when things go off track.
WAN-IFRA Members can view Barrett’s presentation on our Knowledge Hub.
Building guardrails for experimentation
At Reuters, Barrett said the organisation is focused on creating what she called “scaffolding” around AI adoption.
The goal is to give employees confidence that as organisations change, they will protect the best of what already exists.
That scaffolding rests on three pillars: editorial, technological, and psychological.
On the editorial side, Barrett emphasised that governance must evolve alongside the technology itself.
“We’re on version four of our policies and we are unashamed about changing the policy as we go,” she said.
Barrett also warned about the risks of employees using unapproved tools outside newsroom oversight.
“This is the monster that should be keeping us all up at night,” she said.
Reuters prohibits staff from putting unpublished source material into unapproved AI systems. “And we do not create any imagery using AI, no images, no video,” she added.
Reuters also maintains an editorial AI governance committee that meets regularly to discuss emerging issues and provide oversight.
“That just gives the newsroom the confidence that we are taking this seriously,” Barrett said.
Protect content and maintain control
The second layer of scaffolding is technological.
As concerns grow over the use of publisher content by AI systems, news organisations should not make unauthorised access easy, Barrett said.
At Reuters, that includes blocking bots where appropriate and ensuring approved tools operate within secure environments overseen by information security teams.
She also pointed to emerging regulation such as the EU AI Act, noting the importance of handling data and privacy responsibly.
Psychological safety and experimentation
The third layer is psychological.
Organisations need employees to experiment, create and explore new possibilities, but experimentation requires safety, Barrett said.
“We want that bottom-up creativity,” she said.
Reuters is currently moving product and technology teams toward AI-native ways of working, a transition that requires employees to rethink established skills, identities and workflows.
“It’s an enormous identity change for them. It’s an enormous performance change for them,” Barrett said.
Such transitions require leaders to create the psychological safety needed for people to adapt. Part of that involves changing attitudes toward failure.
“If we’re frightened, we won’t try new things. Failure is learning,” she said.
The human side of transformation
For Barrett, successful transformation depends on three elements, which she calls the “triad of change”: communication, learning and mindset.
- Communication: It must be relentless. “If you think you’ve said something a hundred times, say it a hundred and one times,” she said. Messages need to be reinforced across meetings, emails, town halls and informal conversations because people often hear information only when they are ready to receive it.
- Learning should extend beyond basic AI literacy. Employees should learn from peers as well as leaders, while organisations create opportunities for experimentation, hackathons and new career pathways.
- Mindset: Barrett said she has been challenged by younger colleagues to think differently about practices such as mindfulness in the workplace. Even simple exercises, such as taking a few grounding breaths before meetings, can help create a sense of collective focus and psychological safety.
Ultimately, her goal is not to create greater dependence on leadership, but less.
Rather than waiting for direction from the top, employees should be equipped to exercise what she called “mindful agency.”
“I want to get away from people waiting for me to tell them what we’re going to do,” Barrett said.
Instead, she wants employees to take ownership of the change – working together, adapting to new situations, and using their own ideas to move forward.
