Today The Atlantic is launching Atlantic Labs, a research and development site from the product and technology team. The product team will use this space to incubate ideas, many using AI, to understand how The Atlantic can benefit from emerging technologies. This is a destination for works in progress and prototypes, and to test––and learn from––new technologies.
There are three projects on the site at launch: Atlantic Companion, a chatbot with access to The Atlantic’s 167-year archive, that delivers a list of relevant articles when given a prompt; Atlantic Take, a Chrome extension designed to surface related Atlantic stories wherever you’re browsing on the internet; and Atlantic Explorer, a guided journey through thematic articles. With time and testing, these projects may help the product team improve existing features or develop new tools to benefit our staff and readers. (Atlantic Labs is independent from our journalism, and does not involve our editorial team; additionally, while these projects use gen-AI, AI is not being used to create The Atlantic’s journalism.)
Projects from Atlantic LabsIn working with emerging technologies, things may occasionally glitch or break––and, in the process, teach us something new. Labs was developed as a stand-alone site so that it can be an experimental sandbox––a place to incubate ideas without directly affecting the places where people normally read and listen to The Atlantic.
Atlantic Labs is open to anyone, with registration required. Press with questions may reach out to Anna Bross, SVP of communications for The Atlantic, at press@theatlantic.com.
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