This report analyses the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within independent and public-interest media across eight countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. It examines how media organisations engage with AI technologies, mapping current use cases, opportunities and structural constraints. The findings reveal that while AI adoption is currently taking place within public-interest media, it is defined by an approach of “principled caution” where adoption is careful, selective and highly varied. While adoption remains cautious to protect journalistic credibility from risks such as hallucinations and biases, newsrooms are increasingly embracing AI as a powerful toolset to alleviate severe capacity and resource constraints. Currently, organisations primarily utilise AI for assistive, routine tasks such as translation, transcription, summarisation, early-stage content ideation and the final language editing stage rather than for broader organisational transformation. Furthermore, the research highlights deep capacity deficits in the governance framework, institutional training, and strategic leadership. These gaps often prevent individual AI literacy from translating into consistent, organisation-wide policy formulation and enforcement. This challenge is further exacerbated by the funding instability and resource constraints that characterise the region’s independent media, restricting the long-term investment necessary for ethical and responsible AI adoption. Addressing these challenges requires coordinated stakeholder action to invest in long-term AI capacity, institutional support and governance frameworks, and secure technological infrastructure.