Montserrat Rigall is a journalist at RTVE and currently teaches the course on Audiovisual Language at the Faculty of Communication Sciences. In recent years, she has specialised in artificial intelligence and new technologies applied to journalism. “Either journalists step up to verify information, or fact-checkers will take over the journalistic profession,” she states in an interview at the university.

Following this commitment to training both current and future journalists, Rigall is a member of IVERES, a project led by RTVE in collaboration with universities and public and private institutions. Its goal is to create artificial intelligence tools that support journalists in all phases of their verification work. This future repository includes image and video verification systems, voice spoofing detection, and social media monitoring.

“As journalists, we must understand cutting-edge technology and not depend on the five magnates who control AI tools worldwide,” the lecturer clarifies. For Rigall, AI will not replace professionals in the field. Instead, those who know how to use it “will gain a competitive advantage.” “AI is here to stay. We must learn to leverage it through deep searches and without tying ourselves to a single provider,” she adds.

Another project she collaborates on is Vera.ai, a European Commission initiative working in the same field to combat disinformation in all its forms (audio, video, images, and text). While artificial intelligence has made manipulation and deception easier, creating increasingly convincing digitally altered realities, the very same technology can be instrumental in the fight against fakes.

One practical example Rigall is working on is software that, using AI, can recognise patterns in faces captured by security cameras in potentially criminal situations. This system works with a chromatic range: when the colour is close to blue, the tool is able to determine the nationality of the person with greater certainty, which would assist in the identification of the suspected offender.

These solutions are made possible through the collaboration of technology experts, researchers, and journalists such as Montserrat Rigall, who is currently focusing her efforts on verifying videos suspected of being fake or manipulated. The ultimate aim of the project is to provide solutions that can be used by the widest possible community and to lay the groundwork for future research in the field of disinformation.