📚 The World's Oldest English Encyclopedia—Now Powered by AI
The Encyclopaedia Britannica is the world's oldest print encyclopedia in English. Its first edition was published in 1768 in Edinburgh. Since then, the encyclopedia has been constantly edited and updated: the last, 15th edition, consisting of 32 volumes and weighing almost 60 kg, was published in 2010.
The end of the "analog era," growing digitalization, and the emergence of Wikipedia became challenges for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. However, the company, now known as Britannica Group, has figured out how to survive and thrive, completely moving its content online and implementing artificial intelligence in its products.
💻 A new era: the AI encyclopedia
Now, Britannica.com and Merriam-Webster's online dictionary draw more than 7 billion views yearly, with users in more than 150 countries. By comparison, Wikipedia has about 6.7 billion monthly users.
Encyclopaedia Britannica has started actively using AI tools in content generation, translation, fact-checking, and online learning to keep up with its competitor.
➡️ The company acquired the Melingo AI platform for language learning and dictionary creation and started selling AI agent software for customer services and data mining.
➡️ Encyclopaedia Britannica has also launched its own free ChatGPT-4-based chatbot trained on the encyclopedia's entire online information stores. The developers say the bot is much less prone to hallucinations than the more generalized chatbots. However, they still recommend users verify all important information. English is the primary language, but Russian, Chinese, Spanish, and other languages are supported as well.
➡️ The company also has several Britannica Education projects powered by generative AI in the pipeline. For example, an English-language tutoring software that uses the technology to customize lessons for each student, and the Teach Britannica platform to help teachers create lesson plans.
➡️ Britannica Group plans to go public soon and hopes to be valued at $1 billion or more.
More on the topic:
🔄 Perplexity Launches "AI Wikipedia"
🔄 How AI is changing education
#education #news @hiaimediaen
The Encyclopaedia Britannica is the world's oldest print encyclopedia in English. Its first edition was published in 1768 in Edinburgh. Since then, the encyclopedia has been constantly edited and updated: the last, 15th edition, consisting of 32 volumes and weighing almost 60 kg, was published in 2010.
The end of the "analog era," growing digitalization, and the emergence of Wikipedia became challenges for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. However, the company, now known as Britannica Group, has figured out how to survive and thrive, completely moving its content online and implementing artificial intelligence in its products.
💻 A new era: the AI encyclopedia
Now, Britannica.com and Merriam-Webster's online dictionary draw more than 7 billion views yearly, with users in more than 150 countries. By comparison, Wikipedia has about 6.7 billion monthly users.
Encyclopaedia Britannica has started actively using AI tools in content generation, translation, fact-checking, and online learning to keep up with its competitor.
➡️ The company acquired the Melingo AI platform for language learning and dictionary creation and started selling AI agent software for customer services and data mining.
➡️ Encyclopaedia Britannica has also launched its own free ChatGPT-4-based chatbot trained on the encyclopedia's entire online information stores. The developers say the bot is much less prone to hallucinations than the more generalized chatbots. However, they still recommend users verify all important information. English is the primary language, but Russian, Chinese, Spanish, and other languages are supported as well.
➡️ The company also has several Britannica Education projects powered by generative AI in the pipeline. For example, an English-language tutoring software that uses the technology to customize lessons for each student, and the Teach Britannica platform to help teachers create lesson plans.
➡️ Britannica Group plans to go public soon and hopes to be valued at $1 billion or more.
More on the topic:
🔄 Perplexity Launches "AI Wikipedia"
🔄 How AI is changing education
#education #news @hiaimediaen