Soon we may have to add television newscasters to the long list of careers that could be supplanted by artificial intelligence.

Early this year, a California startup called Channel 1 plans to launch the first TV news network driven by artificial intelligence, with stories read by lifelike, animated digital avatars rather than real people.

The AI-powered reporters are just window dressing, according to Channel 1’s founder Adam Mosam. He’s mainly using AI to build TV newscasts customized to each viewer, and featuring reports from around the world, in any language you wish.

Still, his plan has gotten the attention of labor leaders and broadcast veterans who wonder if Channel 1 is the first step in eliminating hundreds of well-paid on-air jobs.

“It’s both frightening and entertaining at the same time,’’ said retired Boston sportscaster Bob Lobel, who spent nearly three decades on WBZ-TV. “Think of the hundreds of thousands of dollars you wouldn’t have to pay these people sitting at the anchor desk.’’

SAG-AFTRA, the actors union that just conducted a successful strike to set limits on the use of AI-generated performers in movies, also represents 5,000 on-air TV news workers. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director, said trying to replace humans with AI broadcasters would be a major mistake.

“There’s a reason why trusted newscasters remain on the air for decades — because the public responds to them, connects with them as human beings, and relies on what they say,’’ Crabtree-Ireland said.

Channel 1’s on-air “personalities’’ won’t be entirely fake. The company uses human actors whose bodies and voices are digitally scanned to create near-perfect avatars. When a scripted news story is fed to the avatar, it speaks the words in the human actor’s voice. The result doesn’t look like an old kung fu movie badly dubbed into English. Thanks to AI, the avatar’s lip movements stay in sync with the words, no matter what language is used. The avatars even throw in realistic hand gestures and head movements.

But Mosam said he’s not looking to put human broadcasters on the unemployment line. “The point of our whole project is about personalization of the news,’’ he said.

Channel 1 plans to launch through a smartphone app. It also hopes to set up shop as a dedicated channel on streaming services like Pluto and Crackle. The service will use a social media-like algorithm to assemble news broadcasts tailored to the tastes of each viewer. Thus an American interested in news from France could see news reports being shown in Paris, but narrated in English. Over time, the algorithm would learn the viewer’s interests and assemble a customized news broadcast featuring a mix of local, national, and international stories.

Mosam stressed that although AI will generate the words spoken by the avatars, the scripts will be vetted by human editors. “Every step in our newsroom process, there’s a human in the loop,’’ he said. Where necessary, Channel 1 will hire human correspondents to cover stories in the field. And while OpenAI and Microsoft are being sued by The New York Times for unauthorized use of Times content in their AI systems, Channel 1 said it plans to license video content from traditional news organizations worldwide.

Paul Niwa, assistant dean of the school of communication at Emerson College, cast doubt on Channel 1’s long-term prospects. Niwa believes that the audience for traditional TV news, whether delivered by human or digital news anchors, is fading away with the baby boom generation.

“It’s trying to mimic a form of news that’s kind of been in its geriatric phase,’’ said Niwa, a former producer at NBC News. “It’s something that is inevitably going to disappear.’’

A recent study from Pew Research found that only 32 percent of US residents say they regularly watch TV news, compared with 40 percent in 2020. Meanwhile 56 percent say they rely on digital devices like smartphones for their news.

Niwa said it makes little sense for an AI-based news service to simply emulate the style of TV news pioneered in the 1950s. “They’re trying to mimic a format, instead of thinking about ... a completely new way, a new opportunity,’’ he said.

But Mosam is betting that Channel 1 will win, not because of its cool-looking avatars, but because it will provide instant access to video news from almost anywhere, in almost any language.

“If we can do the best job of informing people,’’ Mosam said, “then we’ll survive.’’

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at hiawatha.bray@globe.com. Follow him @GlobeTechLab.