Kunle Adebajo, a Nigerian journalist and media innovator, has launched Storyspark AI, a new app designed to help writers, reporters, and creatives generate fresh story ideas at the intersection of random topics.
Unlike existing AI tools that focus on writing or editing drafts, the app zeroes in on the earliest stage of storytelling: ideation.
“Most of the AI tools I’ve seen are geared towards generating entire stories for you,” Adebajo told reporters. “But what if all you want for a start is a refreshing idea you can pitch?”
How It Works
At the heart of Storyspark AI is flexibility. Users can spark ideas in three ways such as text, emojis, or images. With the text option, they can enter their own preferred topics or select from a range of preset categories such as mental health, infrastructure, cybersecurity, inflation, healthcare, and education.
Up to three topics can be combined at once, creating unexpected intersections that could lead to unique storylines. With emojis, users can select symbols from a wide library, ranging from smiley faces to city skylines, and generate imaginative prompts such as children’s bedtime stories or lighthearted satire.
The image feature adds another layer of creativity, allowing users to upload a single photograph from their gallery and use it as a spark for non-fiction or investigative storytelling. Adebajo describes this as a way to “translate ordinary cues into extraordinary story ideas.”
Bridging Creativity and Technology
The app’s conception was partly inspired by what Adebajo describes as a “vibe-coded” application he once encountered, which generated bedtime stories from emoji prompts.
Rather than replicate it, he expanded the idea to make it more versatile and useful for journalists and writers who often need quick inspiration under deadline pressure.
“I doubt anything like this already exists,” he said. “I wanted to create something that helps journalists think, not something that thinks for them.”
Media experts argue that this distinction is key, as most AI writing tools today focus on completing tasks for users, whereas Storyspark AI is designed to stimulate human creativity.
This positions the app less as a replacement for human writers and more as a collaborative assistant for idea generation.
The AI Storytelling Market
The launch of Storyspark AI comes at a time when AI-driven creativity is booming globally. According to Statista, the AI content creation market, valued at $13.5 billion in 2023, is projected to exceed $38 billion by 2028, driven largely by demand for automated text generation, editing, and video production tools.
However, research published by the Reuters Institute shows that newsroom workflows often spend up to 30% of editorial time in the idea-development stage.
By targeting this overlooked phase, Storyspark AI carves a niche within the saturated AI space, aiming to complement rather than compete with existing writing assistants like ChatGPT or Jasper.
Experts suggest that this focus could help the app attract both journalists and educators looking for fresh ways to stimulate critical thinking.
About the Founder
Kunle Adebajo is an award-winning Nigerian journalist and media innovator whose work has spanned investigative reporting, human rights, and press freedom.
He currently serves as the full time Editor at AAOSI, Code for Africa, (CFA). Adebajo has trained and mentored young reporters across the continent, frequently leading workshops on story ideation, newsroom innovation, and accountability reporting.
His reporting has earned recognition from respected bodies such as the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism and the African Fact-Checking Awards.
With Storyspark AI, Adebajo channels his years of newsroom experience into a digital tool designed to tackle one of journalism’s most persistent challenges: finding fresh, impactful stories.
Why It Matters
In Africa, where more than 60% of journalists are freelancers and rely heavily on story pitches to secure income, access to efficient ideation tools could have a direct impact on livelihoods.
Generating original ideas is often a barrier for young reporters in a highly competitive field. Adebajo believes Storyspark AI can “democratize access to creativity” by making it easier for both professionals and students to break past writer’s block.
Media trainers have also highlighted its potential in classroom settings, where it could serve as a teaching aid for brainstorming and narrative development.
“Sometimes the hardest part is not writing the story, it’s finding the story,” Adebajo emphasized.
With Africa’s digital economy projected to add $180 billion to GDP by 2025, tech-driven tools like Storyspark AI may also play a role in shaping how stories from the continent are imagined and told on the global stage.
Talking Points
Kunle Adebajo’s launch of Storyspark AI directly addresses one of journalism’s toughest challenges: finding fresh, compelling story ideas.
Unlike many AI tools that aim to write or edit content, this app, shaped by Adebajo’s own newsroom experience, focuses on sparking inspiration through text, emoji, and image prompts.
It doesn’t replace the reporter’s judgment or hard work; instead, it complements natural journalistic effort by expanding perspectives, overcoming blocks, and helping journalists approach stories with sharper angles.
In doing so, it eases the heavy cognitive load of idea generation, particularly valuable in overstretched newsrooms and for freelancers who depend on constant pitches, ultimately showing how technology designed by practitioners can strengthen rather than dilute the craft of journalism.
