AI adoption: How Lede AI helps small publishers quickly generate content readers love

Lede AI is a Community Sponsor of the 2024 Independent News Sustainability Summit. LION is profiling all Summit sponsors with a Q&A to help members learn more about their work. Learn more about how to become a Summit sponsor.

Hayley Milloy, LION Publishers: What is your 30-second elevator pitch (or 75-word pitch) to a LION member on what Lede AI does?

Jay Allred, Lede AI: Our technology enables local newsrooms to quickly and easily generate content readers love, like high school sports results, property transfers, and restaurant inspections. Publishers get valuable community information, readers are more informed, and the newsroom’s value proposition for funding, subscription, and advertising is enhanced.

Hayley: And as the co-founder and CEO of Lede AI, can you tell us a bit about why you built this business and where the idea came from?

Jay: Sure. We first became interested in AI in 2017 after attending a panel on automated reporting at South by Southwest. Early pioneers like the AP and Narrative Science were on the panel.

This bubbled around in our heads for about a year, until we found an interesting experiment we could try with high school sports reporting. We wanted to see if we could automatically report the results of exponentially more games and what would happen if we did.

When we realized that the solution we built worked really well, we set out to see if it could help other newsrooms. Along the way, we’ve added capabilities and just launched WordNerd, a product designed to put assistive AI in the hands of any newsroom that wants it.

Hayley: How can Lede AI help improve LION members’ business sustainability?

Jay: Three key ways:

1. Operational resilience. Even small newsrooms need to be experimenting with and deploying AI. Our tools are designed specifically with them in mind and create an environment that’s friendly to learning and affordable to deploy.
2.  Financial health. Turnkey articles on things like real estate transfers are advertising-ready. They’re also proven subscription drivers.
3. Journalistic impact. LION members are generally small newsrooms. Small newsrooms are always choosing. “Cover this, don’t cover that.”

Lede AI helps relieve that pressure by making it easier to generate more valuable content that communities need. Smart deployment of Lede AI tools gives small newsrooms back the time to do impactful, important journalism while — at the same time — serving the informational needs of their community. 

Hayley: What’s one actionable, practical, low-lift tip you want to share with LION members?

Jay: Set up a paid account with Open AI and start playing with their Data Analyst tool. I’ve found it to be enormously helpful in terms of understanding and transforming inconsistent public data formats into something I can use. No Excel knowledge required!

Hayley: What’s one question you think the independent news industry — our members, vendors like you, support organizations like us, and funders — should be asking about the future of doing this work?

Jay: I’m biased because of my work with LION, but we should continue to examine what it means to be sustainable, who can help us get there, and how we will do it.

Hayley: Are there any upcoming or future initiatives that Lede AI is working on that you want to preview for us?

Jay: We’re really focused on getting WordNerd into as many small and medium-sized newsrooms as possible. We want as much feedback as we can get so we can build the tools independent journalists show us they need.

Hayley: What’s the best way for LION members and others to try or learn more about Lede AI’s services?

Jay: The easiest way is at our website, Lede AI, or by booking a quick call with me.