AI: Increasingly a Major Re-Packager of News
Increasingly, AI will be used to re-package the same news for many, distinct audiences, according to Matthew Kershaw.
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He’s a former head of digital at MTV, who offers a deep dive into early adopters who are making AI work in journalism.
“What all these new (AI) applications show is that the future of news won’t just be the stories themselves — but also how they are presented,” Kershaw observes.
Case in point, the BBC: “We published the results of the 2019 general election at a constituency level — a different story for every constituency and in two languages, English and Welsh,” says David Casell.
He’s executive product manager at the BBC’s News Labs.
“In the future, we will also be able to personalize by style,” Casell adds. “Put it into ‘Radio 4 language’ or ‘Five Live’ language — long versions, short versions, depending on the user.”
Kershaw looks at a broad range of AI innovators in journalism with this piece.
In other AI-generated writing news:
*Norwegian Publisher Brings AI to Real Estate News: Norway news outlet Bergens Tidende has begun running AI-generated articles on local real estate sales.
Each automated write-up features the street address of the sale, type of property, price, buyer, seller, geographic coordinates and similar stats.
“The robot also has access to historic data,” observes Cecilia Campbell, chief marketing officer, United Robots.
That enables the system to compare the sales price with the most recent previous sale, calculate the difference and report the result, Campbell adds.
United Robots makes the AI-generated writing tool behind the instant stories.
“By combining specific information about individual sales with general trends in the local region, Bergens Tidende provides readers with a better overview of the market — which means we put them in a better position to make educated choices,” says Jan Stian Vold, a Bergens Tidende spokesperson.
That puts “them in a better position to make educated choices,” he adds.
*AI-Generated Writing as Pitchmaster: Travel goliath Virgin Holidays says it uses Phrasee — an AI-generated writing tool – to goose sales of its travel experiences.
“Phrasee uses AI to automatically write email subject lines,” says Mike Kaput, a senior consultant at PR 20/20.
“These subject lines sound human, but perform better than subject lines humans write,” Kaput adds.
The result? “Suddenly, I had 10 subject lines that were brand-compliant in one minute,” says Saul Lopes, loyalty lead, Virgin Holidays.
Phrasee is able to learn to stay on brand and mimick a company’s voice by analyzing countless examples of previous ad slogans, ad copy and similar text produced by human writers.
*80% of Marketers Gung-Ho on AI Personalization: Most marketers are completely convinced...
