Acquisition at 9.5 billion yen · What is the "Wordsmith" platform that can automatically generate natural sentences like human beings?

If you use spreadsheet software such as Excel, you can easily create easy-to-see tables and graphs, but analyzing that data and communicating it clearly is a totally different job. Until now, the platform that automatically prepares texts that require experts with abundant knowledge and experience, simply by providing necessary data, has been developed by Automated Insights (AI)Wordsmith"is. AI, which developed such technology, was bought by an investment company with an amount of 80 million dollars (about 9.5 billion yen), and we are seeing further growth.

Automated Insights - Natural Language Generation and Business Intelligence Reporting
http://automatedinsights.com/

If you look at the following movie that explained the merit of automatically generating sentences from data, you can understand its contents well.

Automated Insights @ Google Demo Day - YouTube


This male is Robbie Allen, CEO and founder of AI. I explain the merit of automatically generating sentences from data using a very easy-to-understand mini drama.


At 9 am, at the hospital.


"Yes, this is your health data", a doctor gave me a report ... ...


Its data sheet is only numbers and graphs.


The doctor left the room as it was. "My teacher, by the way, my health is ... ... Oh, that's the teacher!" Even if such data are handed over, how do patients understand?


At 1 PM, at the office of the company


"Today, I came to tell you your personal appraisal"


It was the data sheet full of graph after all that was handed over.


"So, what about my evaluation ...?" Is a man who asks.


"Let's call a professional data analyst, call me a staff".


"This graph explains your leadership ... ..." staff to explain. Anyway, it is easy to understand if you write its contents from scratch.


And dinner time at 8 PM.


"Will you marry me?" Propose.


"- ... ...." and a bitter looking woman. The reason is……


"As this chart shows, in fact there are concerns ... ..." while explaining the figure.


A man who sinks. There is no such thing.


In this way, it is the concept of AI that it is impossible to explain with graphs and tables alone, and "words" are necessary to convey.


The company's patented technology "Wordsmith"Technology is a conversion engine that automatically analyzes based on data of only a series of numbers and automatically generates sentences easy for people to understand.


The corresponding field is not limited to the economy, but it is also taken into the sports field. On the following Yahoo Sports page, it seems that a report summarizing the game status of the football league is being automatically generated.


AI's Wordsmith technology has already been adopted in a wide field, and it is adopted also by familiar companies such as Samsung, Yahoo, Microsoft, AP communication and so on.


It seems that technology to apply this Wordsmith technology to marketing is being developed.


The name of Wordsmith is "a blacksmith" meaning "SwordsmithIt is said that it is named from. It seems that the meaning of a professional craftsman dealing with words is put in it. Wordsmith's text generation mechanism is also roughly introduced on the following pages.

Automated Insights - How it Works
http://automatedinsights.com/how_it_works/

Getting the necessary data first.1.It gathers data from all sorts of formats, such as acquiring data through API and siphoning from XML data and CSV data,2.Analyze the data set in its own way and perform trend analysis and rearranging the time axes.


3.Based on the analyzed data, we found insight,Four.Generate easy-to-read sentences using natural language generation technology. Here it is possible to change the length of the sentences, to incorporate expressions such as headline format and visualization. Then,Five.It is an overview of the services AI provides, to make calls to various platforms.


A movie that tests the naturalness of the sentences made by Wordsmith is here. Read three sentences and guess which sentences are written in Wordsmith.

Does Our Content Sound Robotic? | Ask Ai - YouTube


In automotive related topics, texts that explain the specifications of the 2014 BMW 7 series ... ...


Analysis of results based on detailed data of report of company's settlement information.


And various texts such as football related material were read aloud.


"Well, what is the sentence that Wordsmith automatically generated?"


The answer is "All three". Even though I thought so, it was a strange finish that I could not feel anything unnatural at all even if I listened to it again.


The news written by Wordsmith has already reached the general user. For example, world famousAP communicationThis technology is also incorporated into the news delivered by the company. For example, the following page that covered McCormick's quarterly financial results. "McCormick announced its third-quarter earnings report on Thursday and posted a profit of $ 1229 billion," is written.


The interesting thing here is that it is not just about listing sales data. Wordsmith is possible to incorporate analysis contents such as "exceed market expectations" or McCormick Company incorporating a phrase different from "company dealing with spice / seasoning material" to realize a more natural writing style It is said that it can be said that it is the result of the technology of Natural Language Generation.

Articles generated by AI's technology contain credits such as the following, so you can easily distinguish them.


When I tried searching with the phrase "story was generated by Automated Insights", it was Yahoo! in the United States About 40,000 pages such as news and CNBC articles were hit. I feel a little surprised that it was used in many places than I imagined.

Apple tops Street 1Q forecasts - Yahoo Finance


AerCap beats Street 4Q forecasts


Until then, even when even a journalist who is busy with work is looking for free time or early in the morning, read the publication materials from the company, extract necessary numbers, and add numbers to outlines created in advance Although it was forced to work by inserting it, forming it as an article, introducing Wordsmith will almost automatically automate this work, and it is said that the article is completed in only a few seconds. With the introduction of Wordsmith, it seems that the creation of this kind of articles, which had previously been limited to 300 cases per quarter, has now increased to 3000 articles.

AI, which developed such a prominent technology, is said to be "the world's largest private equity investment company"Vista Equity Partners(VEP) for $ 80 million (about 9.5 billion yen) has been acquired. In VEP, we specialized in the field of sports at AI's rivalsSTATSBy acquiring AI which is strong in the field of real estate, marketing, economy and sports, it seems that it can be used to utilize the data possessed by 26 affiliates.

We've Been Acquired! But Wait, There's More. - Automated Insights
http://blog.automatedinsights.com/post/110808141052/weve-been-acquired-but-wait-theres-more