Six Months, Three Media-Startup Teams, Real Results: GAMI Incubator #Finland’s Blueprint for Media Innovation

The first ever GAMI Incubator #Finland programme concluded on 24 April 2026 with a final event in Helsinki, bringing together participants to present the outcomes of six months of collaboration to the rest of the Finnish media industry.

The programme, funded by the Media Industry Research Foundation of Finland and run by the WAN-IFRA Global Alliance for Media Innovation (GAMI), aimed to drive innovation by pairing media organisations with startups to tackle real technological challenges. Over six months, teams worked together to move from challenge to solution, turning ideas into concrete proof of concepts.

Opening the event, Stig Ørskov, CEO of WAN-IFRA, highlighted the organisation’s mission: to empower its members to shape the future of journalism, to be bold and innovative, to foster collaboration among media professionals to learn from one another, and to defend press freedom while strengthening public trust.

Driving Innovation Through Collaboration

Initiated in March 2025, the incubator programme paired three Finnish media organisations with technology partners from Norway, Belgium and Finland to co-develop solutions addressing key industry challenges ranging from audience engagement through personalisation, to AI-assisted article transcription and automated fact-checking.

A-lehdet & Neuwo

A-lehdet partnered with Neuwo to explore new ways of driving audience engagement without relying on traditional article formats. Recognizing the growing importance of video streaming consumption, they developed Tvink, an app designed to recommend something to watch in under 60 seconds. The product is now live and entering user testing, demonstrating how quickly ideas can evolve into tangible tools when the right partnership is in place.

Sanoma & Limecraft

Sanoma and Limecraft focused on automating parts of the journalistic workflow by creating a tool that transforms recorded interviews into draft articles. A key realization emerged early: AI requires structured input. With hundreds of journalists and thousands of interviews conducted daily, standardization became a prerequisite. The result is a system where journalists remain fully in control, deciding what to record, how to use transcripts, and what gets published. Their main takeaway: AI doesn’t fix broken processes, quality input determines quality output.

Viestimedia & Factiverse

Addressing the challenge of maintaining public trust in political reporting, Viestimedia and Factiverse developed a fact-checking tool for both text and video. Integrated into Viestimedia’s internal AI system, Renki, the solution enables journalists to verify their own articles and monitor external video content, including YouTube. The collaboration accelerated development and brought fresh perspectives into the newsroom.

Across all teams, one theme stood out: the programme successfully matched organisations with the right technological partners and the right structure enabled them to move rapidly from idea to execution, delivering functional tools already in use within newsrooms.

Key Learnings for Media–Startup Collaboration

The morning concluded with a panel discussion on media – startup collaborations, where participants shared honest do’s and don’ts from the GAMI Incubator #Finland experience, highlighting what turns experimental partnerships into tangible results. The panel consisting of Maarten Verwaest, CEO of Limecraft, Taru Salo, Head of Digital Development, Data & AI at Viestimedia and Antti Karvanen, Head of Digital, Product Design & Journalism at A-lehdet was moderated by one of the programmes coaches Lyndsey Jones a digital transformation expert. The 40-minute discussion offered several practical insights:

Start with a clear problem: Process begins by identifying a concrete challenge and committing to solving it.
A proper plan for implementation: Strong planning is essential for managing technological projects effectively and efficiently.
Embrace diverse perspectives: Involving sceptics early, strengthens outcomes and surfaces blind spots. “You need to invite the sceptical people early on, innovation doesn’t drive on consensus, you need a visionary person to push for that ambitious goal and drag everybody along” said Verwaest.
Buy-in from the top: get support from top management.
Think bigger than the initial idea: Innovation often expands beyond its starting point. Similarly, Taru Salo from Viestimedia, encouraged participants to push boundaries: “Start today. Think bigger. Technology is not the limit—your imagination is.”

All the speakers agreed that a dedicated programme like the incubator creates clear timelines, accountability, and focus, helping teams prioritise innovation alongside daily newsroom operations.

“It also brings external momentum and facilitation, ensuring projects keep moving forward and don’t stall internally, which is always the risk,” added Antti Karvanen.

The GAMI Incubator #Finland programme reflects a broader effort by WAN-IFRA to support innovation, collaboration, and technology adoption in the media sector, key priorities for ensuring the sustainability and competitiveness of journalism in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

More details about GAMI Incubator #Finland, available here.