Artificial intelligence is finding an increasingly wide range of applications in journalism, and the Južna Pruga news portal has begun publishing articles written by chatbots that use the local dialects of southern Serbia. The project was developed by Milena Šović, an AI engineer and the portal’s editor, who created models for the dialects spoken in Leskovac, Niš and Vranje.
The first results are already available to readers. Articles written by the chatbots have been published in the portal’s Leskovac, Niš and Vranje sections, while journalists remain responsible for reviewing and proofreading the content.
Development began just over a year ago, when Milena Šović created the Leskovac chatbot. What started as an early prototype has since evolved into a tool capable of independently producing complete news articles in the dialect spoken in Leskovac and the surrounding area.
Chatbots for the local dialects of Niš and Vranje were developed alongside the Leskovac model. All three are now used to prepare content for Južna Pruga.
Although artificial intelligence generates the articles, journalists continue to play an important role in preparing them for publication. According to Šović, the editorial team reviews the generated content and corrects any errors, eliminating the need to write each article from scratch.
Beyond its application in journalism, the project also contributes to linguistic preservation. By using chatbots that write in local varieties of the Prizren–Timok dialect, Južna Pruga helps preserve the distinctive linguistic characteristics of southern and southeastern Serbia as part of the region’s intangible cultural heritage.
Photo: Printscreen
