• by Ray Schultz , December 17, 2024

The Washington Post has launched a feature called Conversations that it says will provide subscribers with new ways of commenting on stories and engaging with talent, using AI to drive the experience.

"Conversations represents a significant step toward our vision of fostering meaningful and high-quality discourse on The Washington Post, centered around the topics our readers care about most,” says Gitesh Gohel, head of product and design for the Washington Post.

According to the Post, Conversations will provide: 

Prompts — AI-generated questions will appear with most journalism to provide a conversation starting point.

AI-generated summaries — These will provide AI-generated summaries of comments by other subscribers and dominant takeaways.

Sentiment reaction — Subscribers can describe their peers’ comments with a range of available sentiments, including “thoughtful,” “clarifying,” “new to me,” and “provocative.

Talent highlights — Comments from Post journalists will be elevated throughout the discussion and feature their avatars. 

Updated guidelines — To maintain quality, the Post is enforcing a three-strike ban/suspension policy.

The Washington Post expects to get 19 million comments on its reporting this year; it has registered more than 1.4 million users to date in Q4.