Curio raises funds for Rio, an ‘AI news anchor’ in an app

AI could also be inching its method into the newsroom, as shops like Newsweek, Sports activities 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 variety of startups that suppose AI can improve the information expertise — at the least on the patron’s facet. The most recent to affix the fray is Rio, an “AI information anchor” designed to assist readers join with the tales and subjects they’re most curious about from reliable sources.

The brand new app, from the identical crew behind AI-powered audio journalism startup Curio, was first unveiled ultimately 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 may’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 broaden the usage of Curio’s AI know-how.

First developed as a characteristic inside Curio’s app, Rio scans headlines from trusted papers and magazines like Bloomberg, The Wall Avenue Journal, Monetary Instances, The Washington Put up and others, after which curates that content material right into a every day information briefing you may both learn or hearken to.

As well as, the crew says Rio will maintain customers from discovering themselves in an echo chamber by looking for out information that expands their understanding of subjects and encourages them to dive deeper.

In assessments, Rio ready a every day briefing introduced in one thing of a Story-like interface with graphics and hyperlinks to information articles you can faucet on on the backside of the display screen that might narrate the article utilizing an AI voice. (These had been full articles, to be clear, not AI summaries.) You advance by way of the headlines in the identical method as you’d faucet by way of a Story on a social media app like Instagram.

Curio says Rio’s AI know-how 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.

Past the briefing, you may also work together with Rio in an AI chatbot interface the place you may ask about different subjects of curiosity. Steered subjects — like “TikTok ban” or “Ukraine Warfare,” for instance — seem as small drugs above the textual content enter field. We discovered the AI was typically a bit of gradual to reply at occasions, 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.

Co-founder Balakrishnan stated that Curio customers had requested Rio over 20,000 questions because it launched as a characteristic in Curio final Might, 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 information is tough 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 information. Checking the information with Rio leaves you feeling fulfilled as an alternative of down.”

It’s onerous to say if Rio is sticky sufficient to demand its standalone product, but it surely’s simple 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 concentrate on audio information.

Curio will not be the one startup seeking to AI to boost the information studying expertise. Former Twitter engineers are constructing Particle, an AI-powered information reader, backed by $4.4 million. One other AI-powered information app, Bulletin, additionally launched to deal with clickbait together with providing information summaries. Artifact had additionally leveraged AI earlier than exiting to Trendster’s dad or mum firm, Yahoo.

Rio is at present in early entry, which implies you’ll want an invite to get in. In any other case, you may 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 should use my very own invite hyperlink to get in.)