The Rise of AI Local News
When Tom Cochran and David Mortlock started kicking around ideas for a new artificial intelligence startup, they drew from their own personal experiences trying to keep up with what was happening in the community where they lived. The two longtime friends had recently moved to a small town in Maine, where city council meetings are open to the public and available to watch online, but the sheer quantity of material made it impossible to stay informed. “I just don’t have time, because I have three kids, I have a life,” said Cochran. “And this is sort of the systemic problem with communities everywhere.”
Related Knowledge Center: Local media
The hollowing out of the local news ecosystem has been well documented; in some communities, efforts are underway to reverse the growing news desert.
Related Knowledge Center: Artificial intelligence
On top of a failing business model, newsrooms must navigate the powerful — and not fully reliable — new capabilities of artificial intelligence and the deployment of large language models.
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