• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, 7 hours ago

News Corp., one of the largest journalistic operations in the world, is doubling down on artificial intelligence. It has formed a partnership with Symbolic.ai Inc. to use that firm’s AI-driven publisher platforms in its newsrooms. 

This deployment will start with News Corp.'s Dow Jones Newswires, a provider of financial news and market data.

Symbolic assists with such tasks as audio transcription, document extraction, newsletter creation and fact-checking, allowing editorial teams to focus more on writing and reporting.

The company contends that newsrooms are burdened with a fragmented landscape of disconnected AI tools and siloed processes that lead to error.

But Dow Jones Newswires achieved productivity gains of up to 90% for complex research tasks during early use of Symbolic, the firm claims in its announcement.

Never heard of Symbolic? Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp, offers this endorsement: “The Symbolic team’s deep editorial roots are obvious in their sincere appreciation of provenance, and their patent desire to create products that enhance, not deface, demean or devalue journalism.” 

The Dow Jones Newswires empire includes The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch and other publications.

According to Symbolic, its platform provides:

• Research Infrastructure that allows editorial staffs to summarize, synthesize, and extract insights in seconds. Transcribe media files with high fidelity and maintain context across tasks.
• Voice and Format-Aware Writing Assistance
• Publication-Ready Tools like headline optimization, one-click summaries and SEO.
• Fact-checking capabilities that help maintain editorial integrity.
• IP protection, library management, and privacy-first design.

"At the onset of the AI revolution, we have the opportunity to define a new way of working, and a new commercial model, for professionals and publishers who create critical content," argues Devin Wenig, co-founder & CEO of Symbolic, in a statement.. “A future where technology streamlines research and production, freeing people to focus on the creative, analytical, and investigative work that truly sets their content apart.”