Mexican Media Company Presents First AI News Anchor

Mexican media company Radio Fórmula has introduced a new AI anchor called NAT, which from Mar. 18, 2023, has been presenting short news capsules. According to Radio Formula, this is the first innovation of its kind in Latin America. Visually, NAT is presented with feminine characteristics, including its voice. “My face, hair, clothes and even my voice have been constructed with AI to provide an innovative and exciting news experience,” said NAT during its introduction. 

The media industry has recently gone into an AI rabbithole. Companies like BuzzFeed have announced the use of ChatGPT to generate personalized quizzes. While others like CNET have said that AI-generated texts without human supervision could present several mistakes. 

According to Radio Fórmula, NAT’s main objective is to provide impartial and reliable information about the most recent events in Mexico and the world. “News summaries from NAT will appear in the morning, afternoon and evening, in the different time slots that Telefórmula and Radio Fórmula have, as well as on official social media channels,” reads Radio Fórmula’s release. 

In an interview with Expansión, Ricardo Muñoz, Director of News and  Production, Grupo Fórmula, said that it took the engineering team a month to develop it. He also mentioned that NAT is in constant training and requires journalists' backup to ensure it is precise when giving the news. The company did not provide information regarding what kind of algorithms it uses or its language model. 

On Mar. 24, 2023, the well-known journalist Joaquín López Dóriga interviewed NAT. Dóriga admitted that despite having interviewed people from all backgrounds, he was impressed to interview an AI-generated person. When Dóriga questioned NAT about where its information is sourced, it answered that it uses a combination of natural language processing technology and machine learning to collect data from news agencies, newspapers, online news sites and social media. “I will continue learning while I am generating news to offer the best information possible, based on all the information that is generated in the world. This is an unprecedented milestone in the media industry. At Grupo Fórmula we commit to using technology always to the benefit of communication and our audiences,” NAT stated.