Forbes is building more AI tools for its writers

Forbes has developed more artificial intelligence tools for its contributors, reports Max Willens of Digiday.

Willens writes, “Over the summer, the business publisher, which just had its most profitable year in more than a decade, rolled out a new CMS, called Bertie, which recommends article topics for contributors based on their previous output, headlines based on the sentiment of their pieces and images too. It’s also testing a tool that writes rough versions of articles that contributors can simply polish up, rather than having to write a full story from scratch. The CMS is currently available to Forbes’ editorial staff and senior contributors in North America, and will be rolled out to all of its contributors in North America and Europe in the first quarter of 2019. The AI story-writing tool, which Forbes’s product team is experimenting with, does not have an immediate roll-out date.

“With Bertie, a contributor who writes regularly about the automobile industry might open up the tool to find the makings of an article about Tesla, complete with links to relevant, related articles published both on Forbes and elsewhere. The tool will surface images that might improve the story as well. Bertie is part of a broader focus on using artificial intelligence to make publishing more efficient for Forbes staff, and to make it as easy as possible for visitors to consume multimedia content on Forbes’ sites, said Forbes Media’s new chief digital officer, Salah Zalatimo. ‘Anything we can do to make it easier and smarter to publish,’ said Zalatimo, who previously served as Forbes’ svp of product and technology. ‘That’s the loyalty we bring [our contributors].'”

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