New Way Now: SPH Media cuts translation time with Gemini and NotebookLM

Featured in this video: Chris Lim, Head of IT, SPH Media Executive summary: SPH Media, Singapore's trusted national news company, transformed its digital workplace to aid journalists in creating strategic impact. By integrating Google Workspace with Gemini and NotebookLM across newsrooms, one newsroom has cut translation time in half, while another has achieved a 99% success rate in generating visuals through simple prompts. Meanwhile, journalists use NotebookLM as a knowledge base for multilingual term translation. With 30,000+ annual transactions through custom Google AppSheet and Apps Script applications, SPH Media proves how human-AI teaming defines the digital workplace of the future. Challenge: Modern newsrooms are under pressure to increase efficiency while maintaining quality across multiple languages and formats. Journalists spend time on manual effort transcribing interviews, digesting long audio and video content, and translating lengthy documents, while creating visuals and graphics traditionally requires specialized skills and significant time. The challenge is freeing up the workforce time from these day-to-day tasks to focus on strategic storytelling — all while handling seamless collaboration, exceptional employee experience, and AI integration across daily tools. Solution: SPH Media defined its modern digital workplace around three priorities: seamless collaboration and workflows, employee experience, and AI integration to automate repetitive tasks. Gemini is used directly within daily Google Workspace tools, creating tight integration between Gmail, Chat, Drive, Gemini, and NotebookLM. Journalists use Gemini to generate visuals through simple prompts and NotebookLM as a knowledge base where they upload resources to find suitable multilingual translations. Meanwhile, custom applications built with AppSheet and Apps Script handle e-memos, timesheets, parcel management, and staff reimbursements, processing 30,000+ transactions annually. Result: Since implementing Google Workspace with Gemini, one newsroom cut the translation time for a 72-page English document in half, saving substantial resources. Another newsroom reported a 99% success rate in generating visuals and graphics for articles through simple Gemini prompts. NotebookLM serves as an effective knowledge base, helping journalists quickly find suitable Chinese term translations. Overall, Google Workspace with Gemini provides the tools SPH Media needs to personalize workflows, improve job satisfaction, and increase efficiency. Highlights and key takeaways from our interview with Chris Lim, Head of IT at SPH Media: → “Gemini and AI tools are significant time savers, reducing manual effort to digest interviews, long audio, and video.” → “The simplicity for people in the newsrooms to go between productivity tools to communication and collaboration has always been such a strong value of using Google Workspace.” → “The tools are no longer just repositories and communicators. They're active participants that personalize workflows, anticipate needs, and provide a constant productivity boost, leading to significant increases in efficiency and job satisfaction, just by removing mundane tasks.” Google Cloud products used: Apps Script, AppSheet, Google Workspace with Gemini, NotebookLM Learn more: Try Google Workspace with Gemini → http://goo.gle/3TNuJl8 What is Google Workspace → https://goo.gle/45BsE1W Set up Google Workspace → https://goo.gle/4q8r3t1 Subscribe to Google Workspace → https://goo.gle/GoogleWorkspace Try Google Workspace with Gemini → https://goo.gle/45FrVNh Follow Google Workspace on X → https://goo.gle/3YpmHS0 Follow Google Workspace on Facebook → https://goo.gle/4q8cZja Follow Google Workspace on LinkedIn → https://goo.gle/49Eqjpw Follow Google Workspace on Instagram → https://goo.gle/44Xs4eL Follow Google Workspace on TikTok → https://goo.gle/4qijGio Follow Google Workspace on Threads → https://goo.gle/4so5XYS #GoogleWorkspace #GoogleWorkspaceWithGemini