AI could be making its way into newsrooms, as outlets like Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Gizmodo, VentureBeat, CNET and others have experimented with AI-written articles. But even though most respectable journalists condemn this use case, a number of startups believe AI can improve the news experience, at least on the consumer side. The latest to join the fray is Rio, an “AI news anchor” designed to help readers connect to the stories and topics they care about most from trusted sources.
The new app, created by the same team behind Curio, the AI-powered audio journalism startup, was first revealed last month at the South by Southwest festival in Austin. He raised funds from Khosla Ventures and the director of TED, Chris Anderson, which also supported Curio. (The startup says the round is not yet closed and therefore cannot disclose the amount.)
Curio itself was founded in 2016 by former BBC strategist Govind Balakrishnan and London lawyer Srikant Chakravarti; Rio is a new effort that will expand the use of Curio’s AI technology.
Originally developed as a feature of the Curio app, Rio analyzes headlines from trusted newspapers and magazines such as Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Washington Post and others, then organizes what contained in a daily newsletter that you can read or listen to. has.
Additionally, the team says Rio will prevent users from finding themselves in an echo chamber by searching for information that broadens their understanding of topics and encourages them to think deeper.
Image credits: Curiosity/Rio
In testing, Rio prepared a daily briefing presented in a story-style interface with graphics and links to news articles that you could tap at the bottom of the screen that would tell the story using in an AI voice. (These were full articles, to be clear, not AI summaries.) You work your way through headlines the same way you would scroll through a story on a social media app like Instagram.
Curio says Rio’s AI technology will not fabricate information and will only reference content from its trusted publishing partners. Rio will not use the publisher’s content to form an LLM (large language model) without “explicit consent”, it says.
Image credits: Curiosity/Rio
Beyond the briefing, you can also interact with Rio in an AI chatbot interface where you can ask questions about other topics of interest. Suggested topics – like “TikTok Ban” or “Ukraine War,” for example – appear as small pills above the text entry box. We found that the AI was a little slow to respond at times, but otherwise it worked as expected.
Additionally, Rio will offer to create an audio episode for your queries if you want to learn more.
Co-founder Balakrishnan said Curio users have asked Rio more than 20,000 questions since it launched as a feature in Curio last May, which is why the company decided to integrate the technology into its own application.
“AI makes us all question what is true and what is not. You can browse AI sites for quick answers, but blindly trusting them is a bit of a gamble,” Chakravarti noted in a statement released to mark Rio’s SXSW debut. “It is difficult to obtain reliable knowledge. Only a lucky few have access to verified and verified information. Rio guides you through the news, turning everyday headlines from trusted sources into knowledge. Watching the news with Rio makes you feel fulfilled rather than depressed.
It’s hard to say whether Rio is good enough to require its standalone product, but it’s easy to imagine an interface like this at some point aimed at larger news aggregators, like Google News or Apple News, perhaps, or even to individual publisher sites. Meanwhile, Curio will also continue to pull back with a focus on audio news.
Curio isn’t the only startup turning to AI to improve the news reading experience. Former Twitter engineers are building Particle, an AI-powered news reader, backed by $4.4 million. Another AI-powered news app, Bulletin, was also launched to combat clickbait and provide news summaries. Artifact had also leveraged AI before joining TechCrunch’s parent company, Yahoo.
Rio is currently in Early Access, which means you’ll need an invite to access it. Otherwise, you can join the app waitlist at rionews.ai. The company tells us it plans to launch it publicly later this summer. (As a reward for reading to the bottom, five of you can use my own invite link to enter.)
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