Company helping AP write automated earnings stories is acquired

Automated Insights, the Durham, N.C.-based company that has been helping the Associated Press use computers to write company earnings stories, announced Thursday that it has been acquired.

Its new owner is Vista Equity Partners, which also owns sports data company STATS LLC. Terms were not disclosed.

Automated Insights raised $5.5 million in Series B funding last summer from investors like Samsung, AP, and former AOL CEO Steve Case.

In 2014, Automated Insights began producing 3,000 stories per quarter for the Associated Press – a tenfold increase over what AP reporters and editors created previously. In addition, the stories contained far fewer errors than their manual counterparts.

Since automaton began in July, Automated Insights has worked with AP to add a number of enhancements to the stories. Descriptions of businesses have been included, and the stories now contain forward-looking guidance provided by the companies.

Here’s CEO Robbie Allen’s blog post announcing the deal. Here is the official press release.

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.