For media companies, artificial intelligence is an engine for digital transformation

An interview with Francesco Marconi of the Associated Press

Francesco Marconi is the Strategy Manager and Artificial Intelligence co-lead at the Associated Press. His role at the largest news agency in the world is to work across the company to identify areas where automation technologies can be deployed to build efficiencies and increase content output.  As a leading voice in the New York City media ecosystem, Marconi is also dedicated to promoting journalism innovation through his research at the Tow Center at Columbia Journalism School as well as his work at MIT Media Lab.

I talked with Francesco about his work at AP and the organization’s successful digital transformation.

What are your goals at AP?

As part of the strategic planning process at AP, one of the main goals we set for the company was to “develop systems intelligence.” That goal was set as an evolution of our early success with data-to-text automation in news. Now, we are envisioning expanding our automation efforts into other areas of news gathering, production and distribution.

We recognize that AI is an engine for digital transformation. So, we are trying to leverage automation technologies to expand the volume of news we’re gathering, extract more value from what we have by making it easier to provide AP customers with exactly what they want, whether they are searching for it or automatically pulling it from our database. Finally, we want open up new business development territory by working with innovative partners and universities who can extend our capabilities and reach into new markets.

How is AP adapting to the fast pace of technology changing the media industry?

In 2016, AP formed an internal committee to evaluate new opportunities that harness automation and artificial intelligence to expand our product offerings, enhance our news report and streamline our operations. As the representative of the strategy department within that cross functional committee, my area of focus is to identify emerging industry trends and technologies that can be deployed directly by AP.

My contribution to the team is done through the development of strategic plans, the deployment of partnerships and the creation of thought leadership and training materials. Our efforts in this field led to the development of a major industry report expanding on the impact of artificial intelligence in journalism, where we introduced the concept of “augmented journalism”.

Francesco Marconi speaking at NYC Media Lab's Machines + Media conference, April 25th, 2017. Hosted by Bloomberg.

How do you view AI’s impact in journalism?

Broadly speaking, AI promises to reap many big rewards for journalism in the years to come. Greater speed, accuracy, scale and diversity of coverage are just some of the results media organizations like AP are already seeing.

Artificial intelligence can enable journalists to analyze data; identify patterns, trends and actionable insights from multiple sources; see things that the naked eye can’t see; turn data and spoken words into text; text into audio and video; understand sentiment; analyze scenes for objects, faces, text or colors — and more.

We should keep in mind that this new wave of technological innovation is no different than any other that has come before it. Success still relies on how human journalists implement these new tools. Artificial intelligence is man-made, meaning that all the ethical, editorial and economic influences considered when producing traditional news content still apply in this new age of “augmented journalism”.

Beyond your role at AP, you are also a research fellow at Columbia Journalism School and MIT Media Lab. How does your academic work influence your work at AP?

Academic collaborations with universities like Columbia and MIT can spur media innovation. Working alongside academics enables us to apply technology and develop new ways of thinking about AP’s editorial and business efforts.

For example, by leveraging machine learning techniques developed at the laboratory of social machines at MIT Media Lab, we were able to analyze a large dataset of tweets related to the first 100 days of the new administration. The result of this collaboration between AP journalism and MIT data scientists proved both fascinating and insightful, ultimately allowing for a better understanding of President Trump’s activities on Twitter and the subsequent public response to those activities.

New types of analysis and content like that one, can arise from a mutually beneficial approach to research where incentives align, and projects explore potential high-value concepts (such as advanced machine learning techniques) still outside the company’s mainstream activities.

Most importantly, facilitating partnerships doesn’t require significant investments but can yield results when it comes to differentiating our storytelling and our position in the news industry. On the other hand, the universities gain an avenue to apply insights developed in research centers, while AP is exposed to new thinking and technology.

You recently published a new book focused on leveraging storytelling to find inspiration. How does it all connect with the work you do?

I began the journey of writing my book in 2015 when I started publishing my personal notes on finding life inspiration via my Medium page. Rather than taking the traditional route to brainstorming a book, I invited people on the internet to make choices, write comments, share opinions, and be part of my writing process in real time. The resulting data, rather than a pre-established set of ideas, drove the story.

As a result of the process, I published Live Like Fiction, where I share strategies to accelerate success. In order to promote my book and connect with my audience, I leveraged my experience in the media industry. In fact, I am using various emerging technologies from automated videos, to an augmented reality app and even a newsletter curated through AI.

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Amy Chen is Manager of Partnerships at NYC Media Lab.

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