There’s nothing like “earnings report season” that chills the blood of business writers everywhere. A slew of reports, with no standard format, where weeding through the slop to grab the nuggets is mind-numbing.
Why not robots? That’s what The Associated Press (AP) said.
The world’s premiere news and information service plans to start using “automation technology” to deliver streamlined stories that recap the quarterly earnings reports of thousands of companies.
The robot re-writes will start this month.
According to TechCrunch, this will allow the AP to cover the earnings reports of approximately 4,400 companies each quarter, instead of the customary 300 or so.
The robots won’t take any staffer jobs, but it will let AP’s journalists and business analysts to write more meaningful pieces on just what all the numbers mean.
The company providing the technology, Automated Insights, recently closed a $5.5 million Series B round, with participation from Steve Case, Samsung, and AP.
According to the story, “AP already uses automation technology for data feeds around sports, but this is the first time the media organization is using robots to write actual stories. According to the post, each story will be between 150 and 300 words.”
Now all AP has to do is teach the robots how to use the Keurig machine.
