USA Today Launches Into the Age of Generative AI with a New Chatbot

The publishing company responsible for USA Today and 220 other publications is launching a chatbot-like tool named DeeperDive, designed to engage with readers, summarize insights from its journalism, and recommend additional content across its platforms. “Visitors now have a trusted AI answer engine on our platform for anything they wish to explore or inquire about,” stated Mike Reed, CEO of Gannett and the USA Today Network, at the WIRED AI Power Summit in New York, an event that gathered voices from the tech sector, politics, and media. “It is performing really great.”

Many publishers struggle with AI technology, as the chatbots trained on their content are now summarizing their work and diverting traffic that search engines previously delivered. Reed noted that Google’s AI Overview feature has significantly decreased traffic to publishers across the board. “We are witnessing the same trends as everyone else,” he remarked before today’s announcement. “We recognize potential risks in content distribution models primarily reliant on SEO optimization.”

Like other publishers, Gannett has formed partnerships with AI companies, such as Amazon and Perplexity, to license its content. The company actively prevents web scrapers that crawl websites to acquire content without permission. DeeperDive signifies a strategic move to leverage generative artificial intelligence technology to capture reader attention through innovative engagement.

The tool supersedes a traditional search box and automatically suggests questions readers may want to ask. For instance, today it features a prompt: “How does Trump’s Fed policy affect the economy?” DeeperDive provides concise answers to queries alongside relevant articles from the USA Today network. Reed emphasizes the importance of grounding DeeperDive’s output in factual information, avoiding opinion pieces. “We only assess our authentic journalism,” he states.

The interface of DeeperDive is showcased on the USA Today homepage. Reed expresses hopes that the tool will also illuminate more about readers’ interests. “This can support us in terms of revenue,” he added.

DeeperDive was developed by the advertising firm Taboola. Adam Singola, Taboola’s CEO, mentions that the company refined multiple open-source models to create DeeperDive. He explains that the tool is informed by data gathered from its extensive network of over 600 million daily readers from approximately 11,000 publishers. “It grounds every answer in articles sourced from our publisher partners and necessitates sentence-level citations to those sources,” he stated, stressing that the tool will avoid generating responses if conflicting information arises from two sources.

Ahead of today’s event, Gannett’s CEO Reed shared that, in collaboration with Taboola, the company is keen on exploring agentic tools to assist readers with shopping decisions. “Our audiences already have a higher intent to purchase,” he remarked. “That’s really the next step here.”