Demand for our technology is accelerating and as a result, we need more people. Because we take hiring so seriously, we want to incentivize everyone to help us find talented people. To do that we are implementing internal and external referral bonuses.
We are going to pay $1,500 to any Ai employee that refers a candidate that results in a full-time hire that is with the company at least 90 days.
We are offering $1,000 to ANYONE (not employed by Ai) that refers a candidate that we hire full-time and is with the company at least 90 days. We’ll also throw in one of our coveted Automated Insights t-shirts!
Raise your hand if you love interpreting web analytics data?
We thought so.
In an effort to make sense of the numbers, graphs and charts, we launched SiteAi yesterday. It is the latest project on our mission to personalize data at scale and help make data actionable through insightful summaries written in plain English.
Tech Crunch covered it last night and the full details are below with our PR on the launch. Check it out, test your site, and let us know what you think!
Automated Insights Launches SiteAi.com,
Offers Website Owners Personalized Analysis of Web Analytics
(DURHAM, N.C., May 16, 2013) – Automated Insights (Ai) today announced the launch of SiteAi www.siteai.com, a first-of-its-kind service that helps website owners discover the hidden insights locked away in their web analytics by transforming their data into actionable reports authored in plain English.
SiteAi leverages Automated Insights’ sophisticated artificial intelligence platform, which sifts through large data sets to spot interesting patterns and trends, and then describes those findings in natural language, all with the tone, personality and variability of a human writer. SiteAi seamlessly connects to multiple analytics providers, including Google and Clicky, with plans to support others in the future. Once connected, it automatically analyzes a website owner’s data, producing a daily or weekly summary personalized around the key activity on that site.
“It is like having your own data scientist scouring your site’s data and then personally writing a summary for you every morning, telling you exactly what you need to know,” said Robbie Allen, Automated Insights’ Founder and CEO. “Today, site owners and managers have to dig through massive data tables and charts or try to build their own solutions to discover any information of value. The problem is that charts and graphs don’t tell a story, words do. We help them discover the story behind their data.”
The reports produced through SiteAi give users insights about key streaks and trends, detailing where their unique users are arriving from and how they’re behaving when they get there. Depending on what is most relevant on that day, a given report will provide penetrating observations on topics that include: mobile and social activity, what inbound links or marketing campaigns are driving the most traffic, and how consistent or volatile a site’s key metrics are over time.
As part of the launch, Ai is allowing users to access the reports for free for 60 days. After that time, the reports will start at $10/month. However, once there are 10,000 registered users, Ai will drop the price to $4/month for everyone. SiteAi is currently operational with Google Analytics and Clicky, and will be allowing users to vote on which provider they will integrate with next – Gauges, Chartbeat, GoSquared or Woopra.
“Other than some advances in real-time traffic monitoring, there hasn’t been much innovation in the web analytics space,” said Allen. “It’s time for that to change. We believe the future of content is reaching each user in real-time, with a story written for and about them, from their data. SiteAi is a perfect example of how we can do that in a way that really helps users.”
About Automated Insights, Inc.
Automated Insights, Inc. is revolutionizing the content creation process with technology that automatically transforms raw data into narratives (articles, summaries, headlines), visualizations (charts, tables, graphs) and interactive applications (mobile and Twitter/Facebook–based social applications). The company’s software is able to convert large datasets into written word summaries that highlight key trends and insights and are indistinguishable from content written by a human author. Automated Insights is helping companies in a variety of markets (such as finance, fitness, business intelligence, real estate and sports) realize the full potential of their data assets. In essence, the company uses technology to humanize big data by personalizing stories to one user among millions – delivering a tailored and actionable narrative at scale and in real-time. To learn more, visit www.automatedinsights.com.
Follow us on Twitter: @AInsights @SiteAi @StatSheet
The video from my talk at this year’s MIT Sloan Sports Analytics conference is now available. Last year I talked about Automating Bill Simmons. With this year’s talk, I focused on the personalized content we are creating in the Fantasy space. Next Fantasy Football season we have more of the top leagues signed up to do millions of matchup recaps and previews.
At Automated Insights, it is with mixed emotions that we’ve watched the media’s recent infatuation with infographics.At their core, infographics are data visualizations, and there is no doubt that well-constructed data visualizations can help efficiently present complex information.It is for that reason that we often utilize data visualizations in our work with clients.
Media Hype: Recently, however, we believe the media and marketers have gone too far. We’ve seen increasing references to “narrative visualizations” and last week the venerable Harvard Business Review ran a piece arguing that visualization designers need to “tell a story”. Similarly, successful companies like Tableau Software are now billing themselves as “a new platform for stories on the web.” We are big fans of Tableau Software and we expect their upcoming IPO to be a resounding success, but their platform does not tell stories. Their platform converts data into beautiful visualizations, many of which can be highly interactive. But no matter how interactive the visualization, it is not the same as telling a story.
Limitations of Infographics: A data visualization or infographic immediately limits the information that can be conveyed by an author. With modern tools, infographics can be made with a wide array of shapes and data dependent colors and sizes but the knowledge that an infographic is able to convey is still highly dependent on the viewer’s ability to decipher charts or graphs. And there are only so many relationships and conclusions that can be drawn (pun intended) given the dimensional limitations of a 2D display.
Power of Words: That is where words come in, and that is Automated Insights’ specialty. Our clients are invariably dealing with multi-dimensional data that resists easy translation into charts or graphs. Their business problems, and their underlying data and its relationships to external data are simply too complex. But that does not mean that all is lost. It simply means that they need to turn to more innovative tools and technologies, which is what we provide at Automated Insights.
As an example, see below for a fully automated report created by our technology to help digest and communicate data around the performance of an anonymized website. We could have created a graph to show how the website’s visitors and page views had performed and it would have conveyed some information, but it would have fallen well short of a full explanation. That is why our technology focuses on the power of words. With words we are able to go much deeper, and we are able to help our clients answer the “5 Ws”: Who, What, When, Where and Why?
The result is that from the same data we are able to convey knowledge, make recommendations and drive action in way that is simply not possible with infographics.
Power of Ai: At Automated Insights what sets us apart is this ability to work with words, and what is especially powerful is that we can do it at nearly unlimited scale and in real-time. Our technology platform allows us to dive into our clients’ data, filter that information, identify other relevant data sets, identify patterns and relationships, detect anomalies, draw conclusions and present those conclusions in natural language. By doing so, we can ensure that the intrinsic value of the message is not lost or misinterpreted by someone not fluent with charts and graphs. In the process, we allow our clients to focus on the message behind the numbers as opposed to the numbers themselves.
Most importantly, by utilizing natural language that is indistinguishable from that written by a human author, we can communicate much more complex and powerful ideas than infographics can, and we can provide the necessary context to drive true knowledge and make those ideas actionable. Andshouldn’t knowledge and action be the goal of any communication, as opposed to simply looking pretty?
At Automated Insights we generate lots of content. In fact, we generate millions of tweets, facebook updates, articles, reports, and emails every week. This often leads to a question: Isn’t there enough content being created already? The answer is simple. NO, we need more content. It is true that too much content is being published every day, but it’s the wrong kind. 99% of content is of the generic type. It’s intended for a mass audience. Any time you create something that’s targeted at a large group, you have to make choices about what to include and what not to include. It’s a one-size-fits-all model. You have to read a lot of content to get the little bit of information you actually want.
Content for an Audience of One
Many of our clients come to us because they are looking for a solution that’s tailored to individual interests, preferences or data. Because our platform can generate content at a scale irrespective of volume, personalized content is now an option. It allows us to do implementations like Yahoo Fantasy Football Recaps, where we create millions of recaps every week that are relevant to only the two people that played that fantasy matchup, but it’s very important to those two people.
Whether it’s personalized sales reports for each person in a sales team of 500 or personalized finance reports that highlight individual spending trends, the reaction we’ve seen when people get content that’s specific to them has been tremendous.
We are just scratching the surface so far. Over time as personalized content becomes more prevalent, you’ll be able to read LESS than what you read today. There will a lot more signal and much less noise. As a result you won’t have to sift through a bunch of content that’s irrelevant to you.
There may be a point at which we are generating BILLIONS of pieces of content every day, but trust me, that will be a very good thing for everyone.
I am excited to be headed to Chicago this week to speak at the Kellogg Sports Business Conference on April 13th. The conference has a great lineup of speakers including PTI’s Michael Wilbon and representatives from multiple MLB, NBA and NFL teams.
I will represent Ai on the Disruptive Technology & Entrepreneurship in Sports panel along side Mark Koulogeorge of MK Capital, Hunter Hillenmeyer of OverDog, Taylor Caby at DraftDay and Chris Bauman at Craze Promotions.
We believe content is evolving from a one-size-fits-all model to that of a true personalized experience where each article is written for, and tailored to, one specific user among millions.We have had some great press on that front from Forbes and SportTechie on how our technology will change the way fans consume sports and how media companies deliver it.
I am looking forward to sharing some of those use-cases on the power of our technology in revolutionizing the sports space on the panel. Frompersonalizing contentat scale in projects like Yahoo! Fantasy Football, to ourReal-Time Insightsengine as applied to MLB live play-by-play (demo here), to delivering professional quality long-tail coverage toany screen, or even to how we could “automate ESPN,” there will be a lot to talk about.
Should be fun.If you are or will be in Chicago and want to talk about Ai in sports or any vertical powered by structured data, hit me up on Twitter @adambsmith, I would love to catch up.
Here on the AI blog, we have talked a lot about personalization, real time publishing and delivery of content meant for one user among millions by using their data to tell a story. However, there is another great benefit of our one-of-a-kind technology platform -– the ability to generate that individually-tailored content in real-time for any screen or via any social platform.
Mobile, Social, Local
At this point, I think we are all aware that the world is now dominated by our mobile devices.It seems like every week Mary Meeker has another compelling PowerPoint Presentation telling us how mobile is changing our world. Personally, the thought of leaving my phone at home by accident is the stuff of nightmares. And the explosion of mobile devices goes hand-in-hand with the emergence of social networks.What started as a way to share updates on what you are eating, has become a dominant force in the way people get their news and how they do business.
The bottom line is that if you are a company trying to reach your users, customers or even your employees - you have to be able to find them with actionable mobile and social content in real-time.
We’re here to help.
We are delighted to see the world becoming increasingly social, mobile and locally focused. With its hyper-personalized and real-time nature, our technology platform is uniquely suited for mobile and social consumption. We are able to produce content cost-effectively for the long tail of any market.
Thanks to the flexibility and adaptability of our Real-Time Platform, we can deliver multiple versions of the same story tailored to how your user is consuming the content – web, email, mobile or even Twitter and Facebook.
With March Madness upon us, a great place to see our mobile and social content in action is through our StatSheet network.
Our StatSheet Sports network is a first-of-its-kind network of 400+ Websites, 500+ Mobile applications and 2000+ Twitter accounts. Every word on those sites, mobile apps and Tweets is completely automated with no human interaction. StatSheet leverages our technology platform to deliver stories, facts and Tweets tailored to each team’s perspective. And the content is just as strong for a power team (Louisville, Kansas) as for a smaller market school (La Salle, Florida Gulf Coast), allowing us to effectively deliver local and long tail content to any market.
We published well over a million stories and Tweets over the past year and each one is delivered in real-time as we get the data and in a format that is fully optimized for the screen the user is utilizing – whether it be Android, iPad, iPhone, Twitter, Facebook, Email or the Web.
And StatSheet is just one example of the power of automation when it comes to scale and screen.We are working with clients in a variety of markets (real estate, finance, sales reporting, just to name a few) to bring their content to their constituents via mobile and social means.
Traction
So what type of traction can automated mobile applications and Twitter accounts get you may ask?
As described above, we power over 500 Android, iPhone and iPad applications and 2000 Twitter and Facebook accounts, each covering a specific college or pro team. Each mobile application is specifically engineered to encourage the user to share our content via Twitter, Facebook or email. Without any promotion or marketing our Twitter accounts now have well over 400,000 followers and over the past year, thousands of users have utilized our share functions to share our articles, stats or data with their friends and followers. An example of some Tweets from our Baltimore Ravens account can be found below. We tweet out live play-by-play, win probability and interesting facts in real-time for both teams and players in every sport.
This sharing on Twitter has led to a virtuous cycle of engagement with our mobile applications.We are currently averaging between 1-3,000 downloads of our mobile applications a day and have had our apps downloaded over a half a million times with users consuming over two million page views of content a month for each sport we cover.
Harnessing the power of the right screen
People want instant information on topics important to them - whether it be their favorite team, their workouts, or their portfolio - and Mobile and Twitter enable you to do just that. That information can be tailored to them at scale in a way never before possible.Through StatSheet, we have seen first hand that users want mobile content on their teams and they respond to automation delivering that information for them.
There is no doubt that Twitter and Facebook are a powerful force that your customers and employees are using. Through the power of our technology, we enable our clients to deliver real-time content on any topic in any vertical powered by structured data. And we can tailor that content to one user among millions with a story about her, based off of her data and formatted specifically for the model of phone she prefers to use.So if you are a company trying to produce content for your users or trying to empower your employees, we can help you do it in a way not possible before.
If there is data available and a story to be told, the only limit is your imagination.
Today we announced the launch of our Real-Time Insights platform at the On Deck Sports and Technology Conference. The new platform leverages our sophisticated artificial intelligence technology, which sifts through large data sets to spot interesting patterns, trends and insights. It then describes those findings in real-time in plain English with the tone, personality and variability of a human writer.
The first example of the platform in action is with our Real-Time Insights for MLB where we provide highly relevant facts, predictions and analysis surrounding every play in a game as the action is happening. This allows us to analyze each individual play in the context of 120 years of data of past seasons and to deliver deep and complex insights, in context, in real-time as each play happens.
With the new platform, we can enable media companies to augment their coverage with our live statistical insights and integrate them directly into their broadcasts, websites, mobile apps, second screen and social applications in real-time. Imagine a broadcaster immediately armed with 5-10 relevant and interesting facts about every play of a game as it happens instead of having to wait for the team in the truck. Or a fan following along on a second screen app able to take a quiz related to a play they just witnessed.
At the conference, Joe Procopio, our intrepid VP of Product Engineering, took the audience through a demo of a game between the White Sox and Royals that took place last August (you can follow along here). As he spoke, the play-by-play of the game came across the screen and the LIVE technology generated notes surrounding each play as it happened.
For example, in the top of the eighth inning, Adam Dunn hit a home run that brought in Kevin Youkilis. In terms of the game, it was late, and the Sox were getting blown out. On the surface it seemed somewhat meaningless.
However, in a few seconds, AI’s algorithms produced, scored, and delivered over a dozen additional insights that put that play into greater context, and delivered those insights in order of importance (shading indicates the quality of each note). The top five are shown below. The LIVE platform delivered similar notes for every single play of the game.
Sports is just the beginning…
As we have discussed before, we believe content is evolving and becoming more and more personalized. Our technology allows companies to reach millions of users with high-quality, personally-tailored content at just the right moment and our new Real-Time Insights platform is just another example of how we can do just that.
While we are showcasing it with MLB first, it can work in all sports and any vertical that demands real-time information, such as Finance, Personal Fitness, Traffic, Weather and more.
No matter how big the user base is, how unique the content must be, or how quickly the information is needed, we can deliver the message.
The power of high-quality content is coming to the real-time world. And our lives are about to get much better.
There is a fundamental shift with how content is being created and consumed. The following diagram summarizes the ongoing evolution of content from an expert-driven model to one where each piece of content created is intended for an audience of one:
One Size Fits All
The traditional model for content creation is what I’d call “one size fits all”. The NYTimes publishes an article with the hope that as many people as possible will read that article. The article isn’t tailored to the reader, it’s completely based on the writer’s experience, intuition, research, and thoughts. To successfully monetize this type of content, you need to create generic content that will be interesting to a very large audience.
Local
The era of blogs and social media ushered in a new content model that’s more targeted and specific to a particular demographic. This “local” content enables a writer to target a specific type of (smaller) audience. Thanks to the Internet, the cost of production of content is lower and the new distribution models make this content model potentially profitable. But ultimately it’s still the same kind of model: a writer is creating a piece of content for as many people to read as possible.
Personalized
Thanks to the rise of Big Data and the maturation of a technology like we’ve built at Automated Insights, a new content model is now possible. Instead of creating a piece of content that you hope will appeal to a large (or small) audience, you create content that’s intended for an audience of one. Instead of sifting through all the financial news of the day, how about a summary of how the five stocks in your portfolio are doing and the impact they’ve had on your portfolio value. Instead of reading about the UNC win, Duke win, Patriots loss and Heat win, how about a recap that takes into the account that I’m a huge UNC fan, but dislike Duke, I like the Patriots and Heat, and want a quick summary of Big East basketball? Instead of reading about how Aaron Rodgers scored 3 touchdowns and Peyton Manning had 3 interceptions, how about a summary that describes how those player performances impacted MY fantasy matchups this weekend?
There are countless examples and we are working on some form of all of these and many more. To us the term “personalized content” doesn’t refer to “personalized search” as it’s often described. It’s not about monitoring your search behavior and feeding you more content like what you’ve searched before. Personalized content is about creating a unique piece of content that is intended only for you and takes into account all your likes, dislikes, interests, and preferences.
We aren’t far off from this being a reality on a large scale. And while there will always be a need for experts to provide their perspective on topics, when it comes to finding and understanding the basic information you need on a day-to-day basis, that will increasingly be done in a personalized manner.
We were excited to read Dan Goldgeier’s latest piece on automating creativity, where he made a case for automation that bolsters creativity for marketers and gives them a way to reach their users in a truly personalized way.
“The reality is that brands of all sizes are trying to establish some sort of one-to-one dialogue with customers.” – Dan Goldgeier (@DanGoldgeier)
At AI, we believe the future of all content is one-to-one dialogue through personalization at scale. Personalization at scale is not changing a few words in a national campaign to “customize” it to a key customer segment or adding a user’s name at the top of an email. That is neither creative nor personalized, and what’s worse, it can actually end up annoying the customer. No, what we are talking about is true personalization through the delivery of fully unique pieces of content written for and about each individual user. A piece of content based off of their data and giving them insights into something they are actually interested in – themselves.
“For marketers, the promise of automation is that we can get infinitely better at personalized communication with customers.” -Goldgeier
True personalization is writing a story about one person with THEIR data. And if you can do that, the content will always be relevant, because it is a story that is only relevant to that person.And because it is based on their data (their financial portfolio, their latest run, heck even their fantasy team) it is extremely sticky to them and they are far more likely to come back again and again, as well as share it with their friends.
Prior to technology like ours, it has always been cost-prohibitive trying to effectively reach one user when marketing to a target group of millions. But with our technology, businesses can leverage the power of automated content to tailor an individual message to each user and to do that cost effectively, at scale, in real-time and in their native tongue.
If we can give creative marketers a new tool to become “infinitely better at personalized communications” with messages their users will actually care about, then we are all about it.
-Adam Smith @adambsmith
Posted by Adam Smith
About Automated Insights
Automated Insights is the market leader in producing and publishing engaging personalized content at scale. Learn More
At Automated Insights we generate lots of content. In fact, we generate millions of tweets, facebook updates, articles, reports, and emails every week. This often leads to a question: Isn’t there enough content being created already? The answer is simple. NO, we need more content. It is true that too much content is being published every day, but it’s the wrong kind. 99% of content is of the generic type. It’s intended for a mass audience. Any time you create something that’s targeted at a large group, you have to make choices about what to include and what not to include. It’s a one-size-fits-all model. You have to read a lot of content to get the little bit of information you actually want.
