Media News

Fortune hires Lichtenberg to test AI

Fortune is warming up to the idea of using artificial intelligence, reports Marta Biino and Maxwell Tani of Semafor.

Biino and Tani report, “Last week, Fortune told staff that it would be amping up its AI-produced content. According to an internal memo shared with Semafor, the company said it’s bringing back former editor Nick Lichtenberg to ‘test ways to use AI to deliver breaking news faster’ with a new section called Fortune Intelligence — essentially, stories co-written with chatbots, though the memo repeatedly stressed that ‘human oversight is required at every stage before publication.’

“The goal, the memo said, is to get Fortune closer to being a ‘site of record’ and a daily habit for readers. Staff will also use AI to generate graphics, and to turn one of the newsletters into a podcast. ‘We intend to surf this wave, not get pummeled by it,’ EIC Alyson Shontell wrote.

“Axios is also loosening its prohibition on AI-written stories. New internal editorial guidelines first shared with Semafor showed that the digital publisher is relaxing its old policy, which had required all content to ‘be written or produced by a real person with a real identity.'”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

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