Newsrooms have been experimenting with AI for several years now, but for the most part, those efforts have remained just experiments. A relatively unknown startup, Symbolic.ai, wants to change that. It just signed a major deal with News Corp, the media conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch.
News Corp, whose major assets include MarketWatch, the New York Post, and the Wall Street Journal, is set to begin using Symbolic’s AI platform with its financial news hub Dow Jones Newswires.
Symbolic.ai was founded by former eBay CEO Devin Wenig and Ars Technica co-founder Jon Stokes. The company says its AI platform can assist in the production of quality journalism and content, claiming its tool has led to productivity gains of as much as ninety percent for complex research tasks. The platform is designed to make editorial workflows more efficient, providing improvements in areas like newsletter creation, audio transcription, fact-checking, headline optimization, SEO advice, and others.
In general, News Corp has shown a willingness to integrate AI into its media operations. In 2024, the company signed a multi-year partnership with OpenAI to license its material to the AI company. Last November, the media conglomerate signaled it was considering branching out and licensing its material to other AI companies.