Ivar Krustok: How Estonia’s Media Giant Builds AI That Actually Works

In Estonia, Delfi Meedia has built one of the strongest foundations for AI in journalism. With one of the highest digital subscription rates in the world, Delfi has moved beyond the buzz around AI to put it into everyday practice, supporting both its journalism and business.

In this episode, host Nikita Roy is joined by Ivar Krustok, Chief AI & Innovation Officer at Delfi Meedia. Ivar breaks down how a small-market publisher is shipping AI that actually helps journalists: from live cross-language translation and newsroom bots to an in-house “company ChatGPT” toolkit wired into 25 years of archives and public records.

Key topics include:

•Delfi’s three-bucket AI strategy: everyday newsroom tools, experimental long-term projects, and company-wide literacy.

•Why Delfi built its own “company ChatGPT” toolkit to search 25 years of archives.

•How bots and agents are transforming dashboards into conversational tools for subscriptions, ads, and editorial performance.

•Lessons from AI experiments, from court-case monitoring that surfaces hidden stories to audience-facing image generators.

•The ongoing challenge of scaling AI literacy across hundreds of staff while keeping adoption practical and trust-centered.

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