Swedish tech company United Robots have established themselves as the go-to provider of solutions for robot journalism. €1,5 mi in capital from Investment AB Spiltan will now allow the company to significantly accelerate expansion across international markets, as demand for automated journalism gathers pace.
Swedish local media group NWT Media have signed an agreement with United Robots for automated content for the group’s publishing channels. The agreement includes automatically generated content in sports, real estate, traffic, weather, company registrations & bankruptcies as well as the editorial news alerts service Breaking Desk.
“By deploying robot journalism, the goal is to be able to offer our readers even better and richer local journalism, not least thanks to the breadth of coverage possible,” says NWT Media Publisher Mikael Rothsten.
Nyheter24.se, one of Sweden’s largest news sites, has taken a strategic decision to use automated content in order to further broaden the journalistic offering. The company has signed an agreement with United Robots, provider of Automated Content-as-a-service. The partnership initially encompasses delivery of automatically generated top lists on real estate sales to be published on the news site.
Swedish sports data and media veteran EverySport Media Group have signed an agreement with United Robots for automated content from the Sports Robot as well as the Transaction bot.
Says ESMG CEO Hannes Andersson: “The strategy is to offer comprehensive coverage. We believe publishing thousands of articles with a dozen or so views each, generates value in a couple of ways. Firstly it’s about reach, which is the foundation of our current business model. Local sports articles often go viral in small clusters which means we reach big audiences on hyper local level. It’s also important for our brand to be seen to provide coverage of all leagues and divisions, including junior ones.”
Local media group Gota Media is the latest of a growing fleet of Scandinavian publishing houses who see the value of automating as much of their routine reporting as possible. Gota Media have signed a group-wide contract for most of United Robots’ robot produced content services.
For Gota Media, investing in newsroom automation is a strategic decision geared to driving value in its local journalism and for its readers. Says Peter Sigfridsson, Head of Production Development: “Gota Media want to leverage current industry developments. By automating routine reporting, we free up editorial time and resources to create more qualified journalism which adds value for our readers and support our reader revenue business.”
Crises always drive automation: for the news industry that’s not a threat, it’s an opportunity.
The global pandemic is putting additional pressure on an already challenged news publishing industry. The demand for journalism is growing, but a lot of the revenue underpinning it is disappearing. Reporters are increasingly spread too thin to produce all the
stories editors need and readers expect. One solution to this problem can be to free up journalists’ time by having robots do the routine reporting.
It was less than a day from idea to deployment: United Robots build Corona Watch newsdesk tool for Swedish Aftonbladet. According to Aftonbladet Managing Editor Michael Poromaa this solved the problem of updating the 21 regional healthcare authority websites every second, which would have been required in order to be the first to report on new corona cases. “There was an immediate effect,” says Poromaa.
Robot-meets-human lifts local journalism: This week, Swedish United Robots proved that newsroom automation can make a real difference to journalism, as the company was nominated in two prestigious media competitions – a very rare feat for a non-publisher. The company’s Sports robot Q&A function – the robot interviewing team coaches via text message – has been announced as a finalist in INMA’s Global Media Awards as well as Sweden’s Årets Dagstidning, organised by the country’s news publisher’s association.
Swedish tech company United Robots, working in automated editorial content, have filled three new senior positions, ahead of a 2020 expansion phase.
As robot journalism makes its debut in newsrooms around the world, this week United Robots earns the right to call themselves veterans of this editorial technology.