Particle launches its AI-powered news reader on the web.

Particle, a startup focused on an AI-driven news reader that aims to support publishers rather than just exploit their content, has launched its product on the web. On Tuesday, the company introduced the website Particle.news, which connects news consumers with AI-generated headlines and summaries from various sources. Users can also explore several categories such as Technology, Sports, Entertainment, Politics, Science, Crime, Economy, and Video Games, in addition to browsing the most popular stories of the day on the homepage.

The company is convinced that by bringing its product to the web, it can reach a broader audience, offering an innovative way to stay updated with the news through AI-based technological advancements. Similar to Particle's existing mobile app, the website features AI tools designed to help consumers better understand the information. Instead of merely summarizing news in key points for quicker reading, Particle also extracts relevant quotes and allows users to ask questions about the stories through an AI chatbot. Although these questions and answers are available on the new site, direct interaction with the AI is currently not available.

While reading news on Particle, if a user wishes to learn more about a specific topic, they can access "entity pages" that provide details about people, products, or organizations mentioned in the news. For example, when seeing words like "Trump," "Knicks," or "Nintendo Switch" highlighted in a headline or summary, users can click to access a page that offers basic information extracted from Wikipedia and links to more stories about the topic.

Additionally, Particle highlights the media outlets covering a story by sharing links to their reports along with their AI-generated summaries. During initial testing on the mobile app, the company observed that readers clicked on these links to visit the publishers' sites, which led Particle to partner with publishers like Reuters, Fortune, and AFP to display their links more prominently.

On the new website, links to related reports are also included at the end of the AI-generated summaries to encourage users to continue clicking and reading more. Moreover, when users share a link from Particle's mobile app, the link redirects to a dedicated page on the website, expanding access to Particle's content for a larger audience, even for those who do not have the app installed.

The incorporation of AI in the field of news and journalism has, at times, been controversial, especially when some publishers attempted to outsource writing to AI bots, generating backlash. However, Particle's founders seek a way to use artificial intelligence to help readers better understand the news without diverting traffic from publishers. Founded in 2023 by former Twitter product management director Sara Beykpour and a former senior engineer at Twitter and Tesla, Marcel Molina, Particle has received initial funding of $4.4 million and a Series A of $10.9 million led by Lightspeed.

Furthermore, Particle joins other efforts to leverage AI for generating news summaries, such as Yahoo, which acquired the news app Artifact from the co-founders of Instagram to renew its news app with AI-driven features. Media outlets like Bloomberg, Gannett (USA Today), and The Wall Street Journal have also been experimenting with AI-generated article summaries. However, readers are likely to be less forgiving of any mistakes that AI may make on news sites where the reporting is direct, compared to a standalone app dedicated to AI-generated summaries and Q&A.