Introducing Smart Answers, a genAI tool for CSO readers

Today we launched Smart Answers, a generative AI chatbot that answers your questions based on our editorial content.  

The goal is simple: To help you, our readers, find relevant, accurate, up-to-date information that you can trust. And if you can do that using an interface that is intuitive and fun to use, so much the better.   

Smart Answers is built using generative AI, but features only content written by CSO’s human journalists—and those of our sister publications CIO, Computerworld, InfoWorld, and Network World. It’s like having a research librarian at your fingertips: You ask a question using natural language, and Smart Answers compiles an answer with footnotes pointing to source materials. From there, you can refine your question or read the recommended articles for deeper engagement.  

It doesn’t replace reading articles for depth and context—or just the pleasure of reading a well-crafted feature story or sharp opinion piece—but it will help you surface relevant content on the topics you care about most.   

Why Smart Answers 

CSO’s publisher Foundry has a near 60-year history of being innovative and embracing the new, while retaining and reinforcing our core values of reader service and quality journalism. Our investment in Smart Answers honors that history by enhancing the reader experience and showcasing the work of our award-winning editorial teams. 

In the media industry, a lot of the talk around generative AI has focused on efficiencies and cost savings, on replacing writers with robots. Indeed, efficiency is an important part of the AI revolution, and we have for several years been using such tools for tasks such as transcribing interviews and translating stories from our sister publications around the globe. As AI tools mature, we will undoubtedly find more ways to make use of them. But we won’t sacrifice journalistic integrity in the process. 

Independent editorial written by real people for real people has never been more important, and we want our reporters to spend 100% of their time developing expert sources, finding unique angles, conducting interviews with IT leaders, and crafting stories that resonate with readers.   

Smart Answers is an important early step in our journey with generative AI that helps us to accelerate making those people-to-people connections. We will listen to what users want, iterate, and adapt—always in the service of our readers.   

To learn more about Smart Answers and try it for yourself, visit https://www.csoonline.com/smart-answers/.