Dow Jones felt obligated to renegotiate licensing agreements because they license content from other publishers and wanted to ensure transparency and fair compensation. As a publisher themselves, they are protective of their content and wanted to extend the same principles to other publishers when using their content for generative AI.
Factiva's fully licensed content ensures that all publishers have granted permission for their content to be used in generative AI summarization. This guarantees that the content is legally compliant, traceable, and citable, maintaining trust and transparency for users.
Factiva started with manual news indexing, where articles were tagged with metadata. As the volume of news grew, they adopted natural language processing to automate the process. Today, they use generative AI for semantic search and summarization, making it easier for users to access and understand vast amounts of information quickly.
One major challenge was ensuring that all content used in generative AI was fully licensed. Dow Jones had to renegotiate licensing agreements with publishers to secure additional rights for AI use, ensuring transparency and fair compensation for all parties involved.
Factiva ensures reliability by licensing content from trusted publishers and using a dedicated team to verify the credibility of sources. They also conduct extensive and ongoing testing of AI tools to minimize hallucinations and maintain the accuracy of the information provided.
Human judgment is crucial in deciding which sources are reliable, testing AI outputs, and determining what constitutes good results. Factiva emphasizes 'authentic intelligence,' where AI handles tasks efficiently, freeing humans to conduct deeper investigations and add value to clients.
Dow Jones partnered with Google due to their existing relationship and use of Google Cloud solutions. Google's Gemini model offered multilingual capabilities and low latency, which were essential for handling Factiva's vast and diverse content in 32 languages.
The RAG model allows Dow Jones to control the input and output of information, ensuring transparency and traceability. It also enables them to remove content if a publisher withdraws permission, which would not be possible if the content were merged into a large language model.
Factiva's structured data processing, which includes fielded information, allows for easier slicing and dicing of data. This structure ensures compliance with regulations and enables users to exclude specific information when necessary, enhancing the platform's flexibility and reliability.
Ingrid envisions the next big advancement as the ability to combine structured and unstructured data seamlessly. By merging these data types and applying advanced search capabilities, Factiva aims to create a more intelligent platform for risk management and decision-making.
"So, we are very conscious of the fact that we license the content from other publications. And as I mentioned previously, we do that through licensing agreements. We are transparent with the publishers about what happens with their content. We ensure that they are being fairly compensated for the content that we use. But, as a result, when we started talking about how we wanted to use Gen AI, we actually felt that we had an obligation to go back to publishers and ask for additional licensing rights. Part of that, I think, is driven by the fact that Dow Jones is a publisher. We are a publisher ourselves. We are very protective of our content. We want to make sure that we understand what's happening with our content: Where is it going? Who is using it? And we want to be fairly compensated for it. So, if that's one of our core principles, then we also want to make sure that we treat all the other publishers exactly the same. One of the challenges has been that we had to go back to all publishers and ask for additional Gen AI licensing rights. The positive of that is that the content now available through Gen AI is actually fully licensed content. All publishers have given us permission to use their content for this specific use case." - Ingrid Vershuren Fresh out of the studio, Ingrid Verschuren, Executive Vice President of Data and AI and General Manager, EMEA, at Dow Jones, shares her journey from manually indexing news articles at Reuters to leading Factiva’s transition into the era of generative AI. She explains the mental models and frameworks behind how Dow Jones uses AI to empower businesses with reliable data and insights and discusses the recent partnership with Google’s Gemini model and explains how Dow Jones works with the other content publications, navigating the complexities of trust and business model innovation. Last but not least, Ingrid explains what great would look like for Factiva in the age of AI.
Audio Episode Highlights: [0:46] Quote of the Day #QOTD by Ingrid Verschuren [2:19] Introduction to Ingrid Verschuren and Factiva [4:29] Career Lessons from Ingrid [5:58] Overview of Factiva [8:30] The Evolution of Factiva and AI [10:41] Applications of Generative AI for Factiva [13:37] Challenges and Opportunities with Generative AI [15:27] Safeguarding Against Misinformation [19:25] Partnership with Google and Gemini Model [21:29] Transparency and Auditability [24:24] Staying Agile with Generative AI [26:32] The Future of AI in Business Intelligence [27:48] The Role of Human Judgment in AI [28:59] What Great Looks Like for Factiva in the Age of Generative AI [29:43] Closing
You can find Ingrid Verschuren, Executive Vice President, Data and AI and General Manager, EMEA at Dow Jones: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ingrid-verschuren-61a7684/
Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig
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