As digital transformation evolves, one aspect has recently come into focus in media, according to Sports Illustrated and Arena Group CEO Ross Levinsohn. Artificial intelligence, or AI, has begun to create better facsimiles of human writing. Based on the large collection of human writing freely available online, AI's ability to generate stories to improve writing efficiency is an advantage being used by more publishers to increase their available content and market share. But how will this impact the marketplace?
Arena Group Holdings is a media company that holds brands such as TheStreet, Men's Journal, Parade, and Sports Illustrated. While they have a long history as print publications, the company has been at the forefront of technology advancements as digital transformation has swept through the industry. Beyond simply adding online the same content as would appear in its print publications, Arena Group has also advanced in other directions, specifically partnering with Jasper and Nota, AI language tech startups, to improve the speed of Arena Group's AI-assisted projects.
But what can you expect from the company in the future? One focus is providing training to AI language models using the company's archives. This will allow the AI software to create stories in the voice, tone, and style of the associated magazines. The stories will then be edited by humans for public consumption. Men's Journal has already entered the market with their articles "What All Men Should Know About Low Testosterone" and "Proven Tips to Help You Run Your Fastest Mile Yet". These articles were written using OpenAI, a tool created by ChatGPT, which have been attributed to the magazine's men's fitness editors and include disclaimers noting the use of AI as follows: "This article is a curation of expert advice from Men's Fitness, using deep-learning tools for retrieval combined with OpenAI's large language model for various stages of the workflow. This article was reviewed and fact checked by our editorial team."
Part of the reason for this disclaimer is the discovery that CNET's AI-created articles were being published without review in order to save money. When reviewed, editors found over half of the articles contained errors and needed to be corrected. One of the top issues with AI language tools that must be addressed is creating articles with plausible information that is incorrect.
Fortunately, Ross Levinsohn recognizes the value of journalists, even as his company increases AI usage. Instead of replacing writers to reduce costs, the company is creating "enterprise value for our brands and partners." Using AI to increase the company's workflow efficiency by a factor of 10 can help it improve productivity and refresh content sources. This is in line with companies like Buzzfeed, which announced it will be using AI to create more personalized content, such as quizzes, across the 2023 publishing year. Though Buzzfeed did see a brief surge in its stock price at the news, some of those gains have been lost.
Similarly, Arena Group Holdings saw a rise in shares once the AI announcement was made, giving the company a rally following losses in early February. "Will [working with AI] enable us to do more content? Probably, because you'll have more time," Arena Group's Ross Levinsohn, Sports Illustrated CEO, mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article. However, he also noted the prospective danger of going too far with AI. "It's not about 'crank out AI content and do as much as you can.' Google will penalize you for that and more isn't better; better is better," he explained.
