Newspaper conglomerate Gannett is adding AI-generated summaries to the top of its articles

Gannett, the media company that owns hundreds of newspapers in the US, is launching a new program that adds AI-generated bullet points at the top of journalists’ stories, according to an internal memo seen by The Verge.

The AI feature, labeled “key points” on stories, uses automated technology to create summaries that appear below a headline. The bottom of articles includes a disclaimer, reading, “The Key Points at the top of this article were created with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and reviewed by a journalist before publication. No other parts of the article were generated using AI.” The memo is dated May 14th and notes that participation is optional at this point.

The summaries appear to already be live on some USA Today stories online (Gannett owns USA Today papers). The AI-generated summary “aims to enhance the reporting process and elevate the audience experience,” according to the memo, which also states that the AI model that powers the tool was trained in-house over nine months.