Independent regional media in Kazakhstan operate under acute pressure: financial precarity, staff shortages, a weak advertising market, and dependence on local-government funding that produces a "subsidy trap" eroding editorial autonomy. This study asks how artificial intelligence (AI) can be deployed to strengthen the editorial sustainability of these newsrooms, and what the main barriers and opportunities to adoption are. Drawing together Media Dependency Theory, Media Sustainability Theory, and Diffusion of Innovations, we conceptualise sustainability across four interdependent dimensions—economic, professional-editorial, technological, and social/trust. The research uses a qualitative design: in-depth, semi-structured interviews with fifteen purposively sampled participants spanning regional editors and managers, IT and data specialists, and media researchers, divided between central and regional locations, analysed through reflexive thematic analysis. International comparison—from Greece and the Nordic cooperatives to the Global South—situates Kazakhstan within wider debates on AI in "news deserts," while national data document the gap between formal media pluralism and genuine independence. The study contributes an empirically grounded, critically framed account of AI adoption in a non-English, post-Soviet media ecosystem, offering practical guidance for newsrooms, donors, and policymakers on responsible, human-in-the-loop integration.

Authors:
Askhat Yerkimbay, SDU University, Kazakhstan
Danagul Naukhan, SDU University, Kazakhstan

About the Presenter(s)
Askhat Yerkimbay, journalism lecturer at SDU and Program Manager at Internews. Interested in AI policy and media literacy in non-English media. Current project: Rapid Media Mapping of Kazakh-language regional media.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/askhat-yerkimbay-052187a/

See this presentation on the full schedule – Wednesday Schedule

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