Curio, a platform that turns expert journalism into narrated content, has secured investment from Mark Anderson, the head of conference organisation TED.
The undisclosed investment came alongside the launch of Curio AI, which lets users request a personalised audio episode created from the startup’s extensive collection of human-narrated journalism.
Curio AI, which is currently in Beta, has been trained on thousands of hours of curated audio journalism from trusted sources such as The Atlantic, Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal.
By curating available content, it aims to offer users thoughtful new perspectives to questions they may have, whether it’s about the US presidential election, the future of food or why we should care about art.
Commenting on Twitter about the launch of Curio AI, Anderson said: “Here’s an amazing new use of AI: to create a custom audio episode of the most interesting recent magazine and newspaper articles. It comes from Curio, a startup I’m proud to be an investor in.
“It’s a refreshing alternative to podcasts. A typical podcast has a huge amount of chit-chat/ad-libbed commenting whereas 30 minutes of a magazine feature (read by a professional voice actor) is based on maybe 50+ hours of research. You’re just getting much better quality of information.”
Govind Balakrishnan, co-founder at Curio, said in a LinkedIn post: “There’s no doubt that our democracy and our ability to resolve differences through dialogue are at risk. There are also valid concerns about the impact of AI on society.
“At Curio, we embrace these challenges as opportunities. By using new technologies in a responsible manner, we envision a future of journalism where humans and AI work together to promote a more connected and empathetic understanding of the world.”
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