Background
Qatar News Agency (QNA), the official news agency of the State of Qatar, had been relying on a legacy publishing system dating back to the early 2000s. Over time, the platform became increasingly difficult to maintain and challenging for editors who depended on it every day to publish official news.
QNA needed a modern platform that could simplify content management for editors and non-technical employees while supporting the speed and scale required by a national news organization. Multilingual publishing was another important challenge, as translating and managing news across languages required significant manual effort.
At the same time, QNA wanted to improve how audiences access and interact with its content. This meant creating a more modern experience across web and mobile, making current and archived news easier to discover, and providing more accessible ways for people to consume official news.
Solution
Applab developed a modern digital publishing ecosystem centered around Umbraco CMS, replacing QNA’s legacy system with an intuitive platform for creating, editing, managing, and publishing news. The new CMS was designed to make everyday editorial workflows simpler and more efficient, particularly for non-technical users.
To further streamline publishing, the solution integrates Microsoft Azure and Microsoft AI services. AI-powered translation supports the publication of news in multiple languages, significantly reducing the amount of manual work involved and helping QNA distribute multilingual content faster. Additional AI capabilities support content processing and automation behind the scenes.
For public users, Applab introduced an AI chatbot that provides a conversational way to ask questions and discover both current and archived news. Enhanced search capabilities make QNA’s extensive news content easier to navigate and access.
The digital experience was also extended to dedicated iOS and Android applications, giving audiences convenient access to QNA news wherever they are. Features such as automatic news read-aloud allow users to listen to articles as well as read them, creating a more flexible and accessible experience.
Together, Umbraco, Microsoft Azure, AI-powered services, intelligent search, and modern mobile applications provide QNA with one scalable digital foundation for its news operations.
Key capabilities
Modern Umbraco CMS
AI-powered multilingual publishing
AI chatbot for news discovery
Advanced search across current and archived news
iOS and Android applications
Automatic news read-aloud
Microsoft Azure infrastructure
AI-assisted content processing and automation
Impact
The transformation has given QNA a modern and scalable platform that improves both internal operations and the public news experience.
Editors and non-technical employees can manage and publish content through a significantly more intuitive CMS, making everyday editorial tasks easier and reducing friction in the publishing process. AI-powered translation and automation have also reduced repetitive manual work and enabled faster multilingual publishing.
For audiences, news is now easier to find, access, and consume. The AI chatbot and improved search provide faster access to both current and historical content, while the modern mobile applications offer a seamless way to follow QNA on the go. Read-aloud functionality further improves accessibility by giving users greater flexibility in how they consume news.
Overall, the project has moved QNA from an aging legacy environment to a future-ready digital news ecosystem—one that combines efficient content management, AI-powered automation, multilingual publishing, and accessible digital experiences.
