Making intelligent automation part of the story

As one of the oldest newspapers in Italy, Il Secolo XIX, one of the best-selling Ligurian dailies, can draw on over 100 years of rich newsroom heritage. But that’s not all—they’re also one of the most forward-thinking papers in the country, pioneers in color printing, integrated newsrooms, multi-channel digital presence, and social media engagement.

But all newspapers, innovative or not, face a serious challenge today. Reader numbers continue to contract. And with them, revenues too. Plus, the global tide of fake news just keeps flowing. So, sustaining and growing a loyal readership means continuously rethinking what it means to be a newspaper. And doing so at the non-stop pace of a modern 24/7/365 newsroom. For Il Secolo XIX, this meant finding new ways to produce cost-effective high-quality journalism to grow digital traffic, reader loyalty, and company revenues. And that would take something special: artificial intelligence. ​

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That’s where we helped the newspaper embed an AI-powered intelligent assistant into their editorial system. And it’s making their journalism faster, better and more accurate. Using advanced machine learning techniques, we trained algorithms powerful enough to analyze and classify the paper’s content in real time. Now, when a journalist starts a story, the assistant continuously checks the text for data consistency, potential links to other sources, as well as spelling and syntax. By offering them prompts to other content it thinks will be relevant, whether from previous stories or external resources, the assistant gives journalists a completely new way to check sources, develop background understanding and—more important—add extra content they might have otherwise missed. That’s not just making their jobs easier—it’s changing our core understanding of how quality content gets created.

By strengthening Il Secolo XIX’s reputation for cutting-edge high-quality journalism, the intelligent assistant is helping them build loyalty—and willingness to pay for content—among today’s ever more choosy and demanding news audiences. Within just six months, the entire newsroom will use the assistant to increase their productivity, boost the quality and accuracy of their stories, and create rich and consistent digital content. And with this premium content comes new opportunities to grow revenues through print and digital subscriptions.