AI could also be inching its method into the newsroom, as retailers like Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Gizmodo, VentureBeat, CNET and others have experimented with articles written by AI. However whereas most respectable journalists will condemn this use case, there are a selection of startups that assume AI can improve the information expertise — at the very least on the patron’s facet. The most recent to hitch the fray is Rio, an “AI information anchor” designed to assist readers join with the tales and matters they’re most thinking about from reliable sources.
The brand new app, from the identical staff behind AI-powered audio journalism startup Curio, was first unveiled eventually month’s South by Southwest Pageant in Austin. It has raised funding from Khosla Ventures and the top of TED, Chris Anderson, who additionally backed Curio. (The startup says the spherical has not but closed, so it will probably’t disclose the quantity.)
Curio itself was based in 2016 by ex-BBC strategist Govind Balakrishnan and London lawyer Srikant Chakravarti; Rio is a brand new effort that can develop the usage of Curio’s AI expertise.
First developed as a function inside Curio’s app, Rio scans headlines from trusted papers and magazines like Bloomberg, The Wall Road Journal, Monetary Occasions, The Washington Put up and others, after which curates that content material right into a day by day information briefing you possibly can both learn or take heed to.
As well as, the staff says Rio will maintain customers from discovering themselves in an echo chamber by looking for out information that expands their understanding of matters and encourages them to dive deeper.
Picture Credit: Curio/Rio
In assessments, Rio ready a day by day briefing introduced in one thing of a Story-like interface with graphics and hyperlinks to information articles you could possibly faucet on on the backside of the display that may narrate the article utilizing an AI voice. (These had been full articles, to be clear, not AI summaries.) You advance by the headlines in the identical method as you’ll faucet by a Story on a social media app like Instagram.
Curio says Rio’s AI expertise gained’t fabricate data and can solely reference content material from its trusted publishers companions. Rio gained’t use writer content material to coach an LLM (massive language mannequin) with out “specific consent,” it says.
Picture Credit: Curio/Rio
Past the briefing, you may as well work together with Rio in an AI chatbot interface the place you possibly can ask about different matters of curiosity. Instructed matters — like “TikTok ban” or “Ukraine Warfare,” for instance — seem as small drugs above the textual content enter field. We discovered the AI was typically somewhat sluggish to reply at instances, however, in any other case, it carried out as anticipated.
Plus, Rio would provide to create an audio episode on your queries if you wish to be taught extra.
Picture Credit: Curio/Rio
Co-founder Balakrishnan stated that Curio customers had requested Rio greater than 20,000 questions since it launched as a feature in Curio last May, which is why the corporate determined to spin out the tech into its personal app.
“AI has us all questioning what’s true and what’s not. You possibly can scan AI websites for fast solutions, however trusting them blindly is a little bit of a bet,” famous Chakravarti in an announcement launched round Rio’s debut at SXSW. “Dependable data is difficult to come back by. Solely a fortunate few get entry to fact-checked, verified data. Rio guides you thru the information, turning on a regular basis headlines from trusted sources into data. Checking the information with Rio leaves you feeling fulfilled as an alternative of down.”
It’s arduous to say if Rio is sticky sufficient to demand its standalone product, however it’s straightforward to think about an interface like this sooner or later coming to bigger information aggregators, like Google Information or Apple Information, maybe, and even to particular person publishers’ websites. In the meantime, Curio can even proceed to exit with a give attention to audio information.
Curio isn’t the one startup trying to AI to reinforce the information studying expertise. Former Twitter engineers are building Particle, an AI-powered information reader, backed by $4.4 million. One other AI-powered information app, Bulletin, also launched to deal with clickbait together with providing information summaries. Artifact had additionally leveraged AI before exiting to ’s father or mother firm, Yahoo.
Rio is at the moment in early entry, which suggests you’ll want an invite to get in. In any other case, you possibly can be a part of the app’s waitlist at rionews.ai. The corporate tells us it plans to launch publicly later this summer time. (As a reward for studying to the underside, 5 of you need to use my own invite link to get in.)
