Ayomikunle Daramola is a product manager and journalist passionate about using technology and story-telling to drive social impact.
In this interview, the Senior Reporter with TheCable shares updates on his AI product, ChatJourno, it’s unique features, the ultimate goal of the tool and how journalists can maximise AI and other digital tools to enhance their careers.
What is the latest about your work on ChatJourno?
We’ve just secured a partnership with one of the country’s leading newsrooms, granting us access to their extensive news archive to power our solution. This collaboration will provide our users with access to credible, high-quality journalism and enable them to track the most engaging and high-performing stories in real time.
How different is your app from some of the AI tools other Nigerians and media organisations have launched?
We’re taking a deliberate approach to developing our product by working closely with journalists across different newsrooms to deeply understand and address their real pain points.
While other AI tools tackle some similar challenges, ChatJourno focuses on solving the foundational problems that remain unmet.
Our goal is to transform how journalists interact with AI – moving beyond simple chatbots to deliver an AI-powered newsroom workspace that combines collaboration, verified data, and automated content intelligence.
What is your ultimate goal with ChatJourno?
ChatJourno’s ultimate goal is to become the central collaboration and intelligence platform for journalists and newsrooms – a place where stories are discovered, verified, discussed, and produced. We want to empower journalists and users of our product to reimagine the digital newsroom, combining AI-powered research, editorial collaboration, and audience engagement into one unified workspace.
Are you hopeful that your position in one of your posts that journalists and newsrooms should be compensated when their archives power an AI system will be heeded someday?
I believe this shift is already underway. Newsrooms hold the archives – the raw materials of journalism – while media tech organisations like ours bring the technology and models to unlock and streamline their value. Each partnership between a newsroom and a tech company is unique in structure and terms, but ultimately, both parties stand to gain, whether through financial compensation or access to cutting-edge technology.
For journalists, however, this is a nuanced conversation that must be approached thoughtfully. They are the true creators behind every archive, and compensating newsrooms also means recognising their work. At ChatJourno, we’re already exploring sustainable ways to directly reward individual journalists over time, depending on the nature and depth of their collaboration.
You prefer partnership over piracy, and trust over shortcuts in creating ethical tools for journalists and media professionals, what has been your experience in seeking partnership with journalists and their organisations?
At the beginning, progress was slow, and we faced several rejections, which I completely understood. We were introducing a new technology to newsrooms, and the initial scepticism wasn’t surprising; it’s something often seen across industries when innovation challenges tradition. Eventually, things began to gain momentum, and we secured a major partnership that we’ll be announcing soon.
We’ve also attracted interest from media organisations beyond traditional newsrooms, many of which have valuable archives and are eager to collaborate. Ultimately, our vision is to bring every stakeholder on board, from editors and reporters to civil society organisations that depend on credible information.
What are the ways journalists can earn from using AI to improve their income?
Journalists can use AI to boost their income by producing higher-quality work in less time through faster research, transcription, and analysis.
ChatJourno will further help them earn by rewarding credible and high-impact contributions using reinforcement learning systems.
Through this model, journalists can gain reputation scores or tokenised rewards for uploading verified datasets, publishing impactful stories, or collaborating with peers — creating an ecosystem where credibility and collaboration directly translate into financial and professional value.
What is your advice for journalists on how to maximise AI and other digital tools to enhance their careers?
Focus on tools that help you work faster, smarter, and more safely, especially those that protect you from the pitfalls of misinformation. Today, deep research, crafting well-contextualised stories, transcribing long interviews, and analysing data are all much easier than they were just a few years ago.
It’s important to embrace these advancements rather than remain tied to outdated methods. And keep an eye on ChatJourno, we’ll be rolling out some exciting new features in the coming months designed to make your journalism even more powerful.
Any other issue you want to speak on.
At ChatJourno, we work hand in hand with newsrooms. We can’t build without them, and journalists are at the heart of our solution. Our MVP is live, and we’re eager for users to explore it, share feedback, and get the most out of it. We also encourage them to stay engaged as we roll out new features in the coming months that will further enhance their workflow and newsroom collaboration.