US media conglomerate Gannett introduces AI-generated summaries in news articles
What's the story
Gannett, a leading media company owning numerous newspapers across the United States, has launched a program to incorporate AI-generated bullet points at the top of its articles. This development was disclosed in an internal memo obtained by The Verge. The memo, dated May 14, says that journalists ' involvement at this juncture is voluntary. Gannett has announced a new feature, named "Key Points," which uses AI technology to create bulleted summaries that are placed below the headline.
Implementation phase
AI summaries active on 'USA Today' website
The AI-generated summaries are already being used in some online stories of USA Today, a newspaper owned by Gannett. A disclaimer at the end of each article clarifies that "The Key Points at the top of this article were created with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and reviewed by a journalist before publication. No other parts of the article were generated using AI."
Information
Tool was developed in-house over nine months
The AI model that powers the "Key Points" tool was developed by Gannett in-house over a period of nine months. According to the memo, the summaries are designed to "enhance the reporting process and elevate the audience experience."
Previous attempts
Gannett's past experiences with AI content
Gannett's history with AI-generated content has seen some setbacks. The company swiftly reversed course following embarrassing flubs. In August last year, Gannett discontinued AI sports recaps following criticism over awkward writing. In October, staff at Reviewed, Gannett's consumer products site, claimed that online content was being produced using AI. However, Gannett denied that product reviews were created with AI tools.
Industry trend
AI summarization trend mirrors developments on search platforms
The trend of using AI for summarizing news articles is in line with developments on search platforms like Google and TikTok. At the Google I/O developer conference, Google announced plans to integrate AI into Search, including adding AI answers at the top of results pages. Similarly, TikTok is experimenting with AI-generated "overviews" in search results pages.