How Generative AI Is Already Changing The Communications Field — With EZ Newswire

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2023-07-24

YouTube video id: ZJBi0DyZp8k

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJBi0DyZp8k

we're joined today by Caitlin Kelly and
Neil Shaw they are the co-founders of EZ
newswire Caitlin and Neil welcome
hi Alex thanks Alex
thanks for coming on so for for viewers
uh it's we're gonna switch it up a
little bit we have a little bit of a
different format today on the channel
today we are debuting our new partner
chat format when I see a company that I
think would be a good partner to bring
on to you guys a little bit outside of
our typical show I'll select them
they'll come on we'll talk a little bit
about the industry and we'll talk about
their product and that's what we're
going to do today
so let me kind of explain why I thought
this was an important discussion for us
to have we've heard so much about
generative AI Theory where this is going
to go how this might be applicable in
certain industries you know is it going
to upend work as we know it but very few
companies are actually applying this in
products today except for like the
general use chat Bots like chat GPT and
then maybe a little bit in Enterprise
but what if you baked it into a new
product and actually build something
completely new with generative AI at the
core that's what these two have done so
let's just start uh with the question
for both of you which is you know what
do you think the the General application
of of generative AI is going to be like
is it are we all just going to be like
living in chat Bots or is this going to
be something deeper uh that people
aren't quite expecting it
uh sure I'm happy to take that look I
think
um I think
generative Ai and large language models
are going to make a lot of tasks easier
and more productive I think it's going
to increase the pace at which
development will happen I don't think
it's a solve and a Panacea for all
problems it's really the application of
the of the large language model and how
it's trained that's going to make the
difference
yeah and Alex one of the things that we
talk about a lot here specifically in
Industries like Communications which
we'll get into a little bit
um that haven't seen a ton of innovation
um we think there's a ton of upside
um and it behooves the companies that
are building these products to make the
experience really seamless really easy
to use and really beautiful so it feels
like a natural extension of your
workflow not living inside of a chatbot
yeah so Caitlyn you come from the comms
function so it is it does seem like this
is going to be
you know one of the places where we
start to see this you know quicker than
ever before so just kind of talk a
little bit about from your perspective
how this might I mean I you know I'll
just say as a journalist like we get a
lot of pitches so like are people going
to be able to like Stand Out pitching
this way or is it going to be a
completely different use case that
people aren't anticipating
so my first reaction to that question is
that I I don't think that
um
I don't think that a pitch necessarily
is going to be able to stand out amongst
a sea of good pitches that's not going
to be the outcome but what I'm excited
about in terms of outcomes is up
leveling skills and capabilities and
competencies for the average
practitioner
um and so what you can do as an agency
or as a inside of an organization
instead of a comms organization at any
company you can really perform so much
better so much more efficient uh
efficiently
um than you would have been able to do
before
yeah why don't you take us through your
journey seeing something like this and
going from oh that's pretty cool to like
oh that might be something that
underlies different companies
uh sure I mean I'll give you an example
but I know I prior to to launching easy
newswire I spent 15 years in private
equity and as an investor the hedge fund
and
I think it probably took me a good 10
years to develop the skill set of um of
really being like an Excel junkie I was
very proud of how quickly I could build
a model how accurate it was all the very
complicated functions and formula that I
knew
now you can plug something into
um to open Ai and you can develop a
model in minutes
so that's taking probably something like
10 years of work and being able to
replicate it and maybe not the perfect
capacity but you can get pretty darn
close in in you know in fraction of the
time
it means that if you're evaluating a DDO
it's going to be far easier for you to
evaluate it with less resources it
certainly levels a playing field from
you know
um from uh in a second third year
analyst who might not have the same
experience if someone's been doing it
for 10 years to be able to at least look
at
um prospective opportunities and uh and
I um more constructive way so it's the
way I look at it really is it's you know
we kind of lived in a world of
screwdrivers and now someone shows up
with a power drill but it's the
application that really does matter
right because in some instances if
you're hanging a picture on a wall you
don't need a power drill you end up
putting hole in the wall but if you know
how to harness that power drill
effectively you're going to get to the
right answer faster
right and so speaking of which like
there's an the press release seems like
a proper place to start
and there's obviously a whole ecosystem
that's built around it which is actually
kind of garbage that we're going to talk
about
um and maybe that's the thing that you
guys are trying to fix I won't give it
away for you but
um you know how does this and uh what
role does the press release play for
companies and then how could generative
AI actually help improve what we're
seeing today in the market
yeah so the way we think about a press
release is that it's not
um necessarily some a document that we
are meant to flip into an email and in a
date journalist inboxes with
um what the press release really is is a
document of record for any organization
to put a stake in the ground about their
own momentum it can be used as an
internal motivating tool just as much as
it can be for an external or for a
journalist facing pitch
um so we're really excited about
um enabling more companies to talk about
their momentum in a way that's
standardized and formalized in this uh
in this sort of format or structure
um in terms of what we're doing with
this
um uh product in terms of producing
these press releases is um creating a
better experience around it
um historically this has been one of of
lots of different editors
um lots of people different people
involved lots of 3 A.M nights sort of
cramming out this content and what we
see this um could potentially be is
something that's much more streamlined
much more easy to use
um and something that can really elevate
your brand yeah the the use of um uh
large language models and AI in our
product is is only really it's only a
it's like a hook you know it's it we're
by using it in the way that we are we're
making the press release more accessible
more companies uh smaller companies
especially ones that don't have
thousands of dollars to throw a PR to
copywriters Etc uh can now create this
professional content in in seconds
and for many it's just a starting point
we give them a really well thought out
foundation and they make edits to it and
then personalize it as they want to but
it's certainly leveling the playing
field in an industry where the cost and
the barriers to entry have been quite
High
right so there's there's what I'm
hearing is there's two sides of your
business like one is the drafting of
this document the press release but then
there's a whole other side of of where
do you publish it so maybe this is a
good moment to dive into oh
to dive into either the product or to
talk a little bit more about how you're
going to challenge the existing power
structures that exist
in this industry
yeah I'm happy to speak a little bit to
the products because as a practitioner
I've been using these products for uh
over a decade and what I found is that
the experience is clunky uh it's largely
um reliant on Legacy distribution
um lists that are lacking any semblance
of transparency and so our mission from
day one was to make the process easy and
simple and clear right transparent
um and so that's what we're doing with
the UI our promise to customers is not
only can you create a press release in a
matter of seconds
um you can also distribute it to the
Publications that are most meaningful to
your business and that quite frankly is
a game changer
yeah I want to get back to some of the
um the things that you mentioned here
but maybe this is a good opportunity for
us to actually take a look at the
product yeah sure I can um I'll share my
screen and quickly
um give a little video demo of
um an example
that we put together earlier today this
is an example that's based on Alex's new
um product launch for this new this new
video series
um so it's pretty straightforward you
add your your media contact information
this is the person who you would want a
journalist to contact or any sort of
external party to contact if they wanted
to write or learn more about your news
you add in a couple of sentences here
we've drafted this for Alex and and pop
it into
our UI we make this super easy to use we
give you some pointers on on what
constitutes a good prompt
um because the better obviously the
better information you input the better
the outcome will be
um and then you hit create it takes a
couple of seconds Neil do you want to
speak to the prompt and yeah look the
you know the power of the large language
models is really their generality and
however for highly technical
applications like writing a press
release uh
you really need to train that model and
ask the right questions uh and um and
and provide key inputs necessary so you
don't have what's known as
hallucinations and the output or things
that are made up and so forth so what
we've done is really codified our
operational experience through Decades
of operational experiences in this in
writing press releases and
Communications in and translated that
into a process and a engineering
exercise to really leverage large
language models in the best way so that
the content that is created is
professional it's accurate and it's free
of any you know uh unwanted
improvisations
so what they you what we just ran
through with that demo while he was
talking was we created the press release
um the the AI piece of it the actual um
engineering of the press release took a
matter of seconds
um we have it in a in a very traditional
text editor box so you can go in there
and add your headshots and and add
quotes add links make it fancy
and uh you know presentable to everyone
um and then you publish it so we created
a
um you know our wire is called easy
newswire our first media partnership was
with the Associated Press
um they as you know are doing really
interesting things with open Ai and I
think that they'll be
um
uh open and willing to partner with
other technology companies
um and now we're working with Publishers
across the country to help distribute
business announcements that are relevant
to their communities news so that means
that a publisher in Charleston South
Carolina for instance is now going to
run uh business announcements and press
releases from Easy newswire that are
relevant to Their audience
um and we're really excited about that
yeah yeah go ahead and try to go back to
the video uh but to show how you know
the process is very quick right
um there was a point in the process
where the user gets to decide where they
want it to be published and that is
we've also demystified that process for
PR the existing providers uh
their checkout process or their
selection process is really meant for
practitioners and is lidgered with it's
a Chinese manual littered with the
options it's not transparent on pricing
it's not transparent on placement and so
forth by partnering with Publications
and guaranteeing placement we've given
that power back to the consumer to let
them create their own shopping cart and
decide exactly where they want their
news to be placed
yeah there's so many sides of this
there's the creation there's the
selection and there's the actual
publication and payment
um so let's talk a little bit about
creation about uh what it would be like
to you know build a press release in
here so I watched that video as it went
on that was pretty accurate in terms of
what I was doing I mean at a glance
um but it looked like legitimately like
big technology it does newsletter and
podcasts and starting this new partner
program that was like a very good uh
press release so Caitlyn just talk about
it from like the eye of a practitioner
here
um you said many sleepless nights and
and lots of sweat that went into you
know I guess putting together the press
release and then sending it out so talk
a little bit about how this generative
AI can actually change the way that
practitioners make this happen it's huge
I mean for me as a practitioner I've
been doing this for years and years I
started off early in my career and I
would I would be responsible for that
first draft right
um and then it would go up sort of the
totem pole and it would touch every
single person on that hierarchy all the
way up to the CEO so if you add that up
the accredited you know time spent on
that one document is actually massive
and that equates to a lot of dollars
spent for any given company
um and so what we're so excited about is
not just the fact that our technology is
enabling companies like the ones I've
worked for before to have a bigger
faster Head Start to get this content
created and published but also that
we're enabling a whole category of
companies that have never ever known
that this was possible for them that's
so exciting to me to be able to walk
talk and and work with the small to
medium-sized businesses that we're
talking to every single day to demystify
as Neil said this process which they've
never felt like they had access to yeah
so what does it take to be a newswire
like the competitors that you're going
against are like PR newswire so by the
way like as a reporter in my inbox when
I get a press release like people be
like here's our news you can go to PR
newswire to see the press release and
like one of the things I always wondered
was like well how did they become a
newswire like did they just need a
website like what does it take to become
a wire
well the wire actually dates back to
1846. the prehistoric times
um it's a Jurassic era practically but
it was really the the foundation of the
wire was really laying the telegraph
cable between New York and uh and London
and that was the Genesis of creating uh
the transfer of that news content and
making it more efficient and it's
actually incredibly interesting because
the Associated Press in fact was one of
those first companies to help distribute
that news from Europe and the rest of
the world
now today what that means is that we
have an RSS feed that feeds directly
into the cms's of many of these
Publishers
um and that's how that information is
transmitted
that's pretty cool okay so you don't
need to build that like transcontinental
wire to do what you're doing
right but the the ones that are
incumbent right now it's they seem to
have sort of taken advantage of a bit of
uh you know a competition a a position
that sort of insulates themselves from
competition and uh maybe acted as if you
need to build a wire legitimately to
challenge them right
well distribution is an incredibly hard
thing to build right um so I'm not
trying to undermine the complexity and
the work that those companies have
dedicated to building that Network
um but like with all Industries Ai and
technology is changing how things are
done
and we hope that
um we will have a better way of
attacking some of those distribution
endpoints as they call them in the
business
um to get our customers in the hands of
the media companies that matter to them
a little bit faster
yeah so what's your pitch when you go to
these media companies and say hey why
don't you work with us I mean as I'm I'd
imagine it's kind of a tougher pitch
because I you know having worked inside
some newsrooms like in media companies
they're like fairly slow and like they
tend to really drag their feed on
Innovation and you're coming to them
saying hey not only are we building you
know a new new newswire but we're going
to use AI in the in the creation process
what are those conversations like
I do right well look we the conversation
with Publishers actually
um uh relatively straightforward we
provide them three things Revenue
content and
advertising leads so they like us we
give them three things uh we also do all
the heavy lifting we have a great
technical team we work closely with the
Publishers to make sure that the
integration on the technology side is
seamless
um on the topic of AI we make it pretty
clear that look this is and and to be
transparent about half of our users uh
leverage our AI writing wizard the other
half they have right the other half have
their own content ready to go and they
really just want better uh and more uh
transparent distribution
uh but the we make it clear to our our
customers and the Publishers that this
content is really a draft and the
customer can modify it personalize it in
any way they want
and we also have we and and on top of
that Alex we have a lot of filters in
place to check for the
um safe brand safety of a of a um of a
piece of content to make sure that it
fits the narrative or fits the
um the voice of the publication and so
forth
and just in terms of the appetite of the
Publishers
um
I think that things are changing so
rapidly that even two years ago when you
worked inside of some of these larger
newsrooms
um there is a bigger appetite and more
um fluency around some of these
Technologies than ever before
um folks are willing to give things a
shot it's just a matter of how much lift
does it take from their side
um so when we come to the table and
offer to do a lot of that heavy lifting
it's a it's a much easier way to get to
a yes that's cool and so what is like a
pricing comparison like let's say I
wanted to put a press release on one of
your competitors I mean I you you did
show in the video at uh you know
checkout screen that seemed you know far
more affordable than other options that
I've heard about
yeah so um we are more affordable than
many of the players on the market today
we're also more transparent about our
pricing
um one of the things that I encountered
as a practitioner was that there's not
um a lot of upfront communication around
how much things cost and that's a
problem
um I've I can tell you anecdotally that
I've been hit with an invoice in the
thousands of dollars for very early
stage companies that do not have the
funds to support an expense like that
um and so after the fact that's coming
in after you oh geez so there's an AP
process with many of the the Legacy
services and and that's worked for them
and that's fine but for earlier stage
companies for smaller companies that
don't have processes or funds bank
account sizes like that
um it's really an issue and so we've
been very committed from day one to make
sure that the price point is one that is
palatable for the majority of companies
this is not a one percent product we are
a product for the others right for the
99
um and we've been really committed to
that
um and we have that conversation with
Publishers on day one to make sure that
they understand who they're serving they
are serving the small businesses that
are operating in their market and they
understand that and want to work with us
because a healthier business ecosystem
in their Market benefits them long term
totally so what would a price look like
for you guys
it starts as low as 25 we actually don't
charge for writing the content the the
writing the AI writing wizard is
complimentary uh you only pay really for
the endpoints that you want guaranteed
placement in so those those endpoints we
work together with the Publishers to
develop pricing that makes sense but on
average Alex we're 90 cheaper than
um than the incumbents so when a press
release from Easy newswire goes to a
publisher does it go to like a certain
section is it like a release section and
let's say it goes to the AP for instance
where like does that get distributed on
the AP newswire where do I find them it
does so the we have a direct partnership
with the AP that's actually the first
partnership that we did
um and and so does uh some of the Legacy
players uh but the AP has a specific
section on their site for press releases
and it's segmented by their partners
that they work with including easy news
wire so if you go to their site you'll
see it
um in addition to that we work with the
AP to distribute it now it's not
guaranteed but often
um you know the average pickup is around
five to six links with about three
thousand member newsrooms that subscribe
to the ap's feed across the country and
that's everyone from like the New York
Times comes down to
um you know a a local publication to a
college newspaper that's cool so how
long have you been in market for
we launched we came out of beta and
launched um about two months ago and
we've been working yeah we've been we
launched our Alpha in um in August of
last year we've been working on this now
for about three and a half years I'm
just curious what the feedback has been
from clients who've used the generative
stuff what are they telling you
so far 80 of our clients when we ask
them we have a feedback survey that we
we asked the client customers to fill
out
um 75 to 80 have rated our content
um creation a five out of five uh which
means that there's minimal or no changes
um uh but we're making changes to uh to
our uh to our models our parameters
every single day so we hope to get that
number closer to 90 but you're right
it's a pretty good number yeah what
models are you building on like are you
building on open AI models or we use we
use uh we do use gpt4 which is an a open
AI product and there's a there's been a
couple of new
um releases from some of the competitors
out there that we are um we're also uh
involving into our Tech stack it really
depends on the use case and that's a
great thing is that we can really
leverage off the tens of billions of
dollars invested in in uh in AI over the
past decade in order to really fine-tune
and make our uh our content better but
for any single you know you know for any
single release we're typically calling
our models about 20 to 25 times it's
very different than if you just took you
know uh that same piece of content that
input and went to for example chat GPT
which is more of a One-Shot model uh and
got you know really one uh one output
we're really iterating behind the scenes
uh so that the quality of that content
is professional and like I mentioned
before there are very few hallucinations
I want to ask both you you come at this
from very interesting backgrounds I mean
Caitlyn being a practitioner to decide
to go to build a tech company talk a
little bit about your journey there
if I would have known how hard it was
before I started I never would have done
it
um but no I mean I talked to folks about
this a lot it's the most it's the
hardest and most gratifying thing I've
ever done
um but I do think that having this
practitioner this like first-hand
operational experience has made all the
difference
um we've lived in the shoes of folks
trying to um create a narrative trying
to explain and express and
um Pitch that narrative to media and
journalist
um and so it's incredibly powerful in
terms of how that manifests in the
product experience
um and it certainly made a difference to
the experience of our of our end
customers yeah Neil look when I speak
with investors they always say I got a
good good life uh you know they get to
evaluate different companies and
investment opportunities and and uh they
get to chill so what made you trade that
in for the entrepreneur lifestyle yeah
well you know I actually started my
first software company when I was pretty
young and
um I I exited it when I was a sophomore
in college and I I was awarded under
grad so I've kind of got sucked into
that the the
um the High Finance
um Vortex so you know really that
15-year journey in finance was uh was my
sabbatical and then I returned I would
say back to being an entrepreneur it's
you know like the world of being an
entrepreneur in the world of of startups
is an incredibly difficult path so you
have to some someone be a glutton for
punishment and like The Daily Grind that
comes with it
yeah oh I hear you on that 100 any did I
miss anything or is there anything else
that viewers should should think about
when they are considering this or
thinking about this story
um
the thing and I think this is more of a
question for you or just like to turn
that like
um interview
there is sort of a um there is a lot of
questions or a lot of conversation
around journalism and Ai and how AI is
sort of impacting and influencing
journalism and one of the things that we
didn't talk a lot about during this call
was that the content that we're creating
and Publishing in media companies at you
know the AP for instance or any of the
other media companies that we work with
is clearly marked as sponsored content
it is paid content just as this
conversation is paid with you we are
paying these Publishers to run this
content and it's marked as such
um and so we do get a lot of questions
around the distinction between editorial
and paid and how that line might be
blurring and so there's not much there's
I don't you know I don't really have a
point or a question but it is a it's
something that people are talking about
a lot
um and I just you know just sort of
wanted to open up the conversation that
none of this technology none of this
content is ever going to replace the
work of well-researched Journalism
yeah no I'm with you yeah
all right so no I just think it's an
important thing to to mention or just
keep mind of as we're especially we
think about it every day
um but in terms of how we work with
publishers
it's always on a commercial basis it's
always a revenue conversation
um and then if there's upside and in an
editorial perspective that's great for
the brand
definitely and yeah some people have
said that the best ads are content and
if you're that what I like about your
targeting system is you're giving the
person who's putting the release out
some level of control to be able to find
Publications that fit and that that is a
real service because oftentimes they'll
just show up in places that they don't
belong and when those can get better
targeted it works for everybody the the
um the company doing the release and the
publisher and the reader yeah yeah so
well listen we really enjoyed it this
has been really fun as as we've all said
this is a Shakedown business and we're
trying to be eight anti-shakedown as
well said to me before so um thank you
for having us in this conversation we're
excited to talk to some of anybody who
wants to continue the conversation about
it and um we'll see how it goes thanks
for being here I really appreciate you
helping me pilot this new series
couldn't think of a better company to do
it especially this is pretty newsworthy
stuff very cool so just shout out the
URL or the way to get in touch with you
before we we go I'll put it in the show
notes but for those that are watching
right now what should they do yeah it's
uh it's easy so letters easy
newswire.com that's our uh that's our
URL uh and you could reach us at you can
reach me at NS EZ newswire.com and CK
newswire.com or hello.com and they'll
get to us amazing well Caitlin Neil
thank you so much for coming on for
opening my eyes and our viewers eyes to
a really interesting new area and a
practical finally a practical
application of generative AI we're here
and we're just gonna started all right
thank you so much