The Associated Press will implement new software this spring that will allow the generation and publication of NCAA stories automatically.
According to a Poynter report on Wednesday, the AP will collaborate with Automated Insights, a language generation company, to provide coverage of sports stories automatically through software. The new robotic reporting will start with NCAA Division I baseball games this spring.
At the helm of this new technology, the AP will be able to produce thousands of additional stories for the wire.
Barry Bedlan, the AP’s deputy director of sports products talked about the implications of the technology in a Wednesday press release.
“This new partnership will allow AP to cover more college sports of interest to our members and their audiences. This will mean thousands of more stories on the AP wire, which will remain unmatched in the industry. Every college sports town will have some level of coverage,” Bedlan stated.
Any wire services attempting to match the staggering pace of the AP might’ve just lost its last glimmer of hope.
The AP will start robot reporting with Division I baseball and will implement the software to “Division I women’s basketball, Division II and III football, and Division II and III men’s basketball will be added during the next 20 months.”
Using the software by Automated Insights, the AP will take statistics and other relevant information from the NCAA and generate news copy automatically. Each story will be posted to the NCAA related page of the teams being covered.
The AP has been in conversation with AI about expanding their partnership for the last several years. Having already used AI’s software for business stories, the AP has gone from writing 300 reports to 3,000 reports each quarter, according to The Huffington Post.